The Regent
by Calcite
Summary: AU. Kenyako. For Ken Ichijouji, the Regent of the Digital World, a simple expedition into the Real World leads to so much more, and could prove to be the salvation or destruction of everything.
1. Prologue

PAUSE FOR BOURGEOIS LEGALITIES "Digimon" and all characters and situations contained within are copyrighted trademarks of Bandai, Saban Entertainment and Upper Deck. Permission is hereby granted by the author to reproduce this document unless you try to make money off of it; if so, please contact me first at Calcite_McWhalen@hotmail.com. I may be a grown-up cartoon fan but I do know my way around Title 17.  
  
Eccentricities of this story:  
  
1) I will refer to all major human characters by their Japanese names and everyone else is in English. The traditional English method of first/last name will be followed.  
  
2) This story is an Alternate Universe story. It contains a mild rewrite of 02: Episode 21, or "The Crest of Kindness" and ignores the continuity thereafter. Please go into this story with that in mind as if you don't you will be anywhere from minorly confused to majorly irked, and that's something that neither of us will enjoy.  
  
3) There are no major warnings. This story will remain rated PG:13 for violence, swearing, and possible (and mild) mature content.  
  
****  
  
Prologue  
  
****  
  
TO: Stingmon LOCALE: Primary Village FROM: Elecmon RE: Weekly numbers  
  
Banner week down here. We're actually up in balance for once. Keep in mind that we're gonna hit a dry spell in three months or so. There just haven't been many new eggs lately. I guess the Regent's life extension program two years back is finally paying off, eh?  
  
Speaking of, his weekly visit went oddly. He seemed detached, only interested in the numbers. I haven't seen him so withdrawn before. Any idea what's wrong?  
  
Incidently, you owe me and Teddymon a meal at Digitamamons' place for the totals this week. I definitely plan on collecting, so get it scheduled!  
  
See ya then.  
  
****  
  
TO: Stingmon LOCALE: Server Prime FROM: Leomon RE: Server report  
  
We've been having tooling problems at Factory South: some fool Gizamon wasn't paying enough attention and damn near had its head cut off. He's okay; the factory isn't and won't be cooking again until we get the refined steel from the Pyramid. See if you can get them to speed things up, huh? Totals aren't going anywhere until things get better there.  
  
The Regent stopped by yesterday. Seemed preoccupied. What's cooking down there, Sting? Having the Regent inattentive enough to ignore the possibly injured Gizamon worries me. Get the clown on this, Sting. He's always been better at understanding humans anyway.  
  
Leomon  
  
****  
  
TO: Stingmon LOCALE: Pyramid FROM: Datamon RE: Seal report  
  
Report for Seal Status on 19 March:  
  
Incoming traffic: 874 Received: 24 Redirected: 850 Outgoing traffic: 28 Gate access: 0 Transfers: 0  
  
As if there was any doubt about any of that, anyway. We've got the retooled factory components ready to go: where are they going again? Oh, and get word to the Regent that we've found a new power source for Northern Server, whenever he gets the chance to come down here. We sent him the message directly, but he hasn't responded yet (it was six hours ago or so) and that's unlike him.  
  
The incoming traffic from the human world's been cut down over the last few months by almost 100%. Thankfully we're a completely coexistent dimension now, but perhaps somebody should be sent out to take a look around at things? Absolutely no traffic for almost three months is getting to be worrisome.  
  
--Datamon  
  
****  
  
TO: Stingmon LOCALE: File FROM: Angemon RE: File report  
  
We're at the slow season here in File, so it's about as quiet as it ever gets here. If you want to take a few days to be normal again, now's the time on File. I've even started playing Solitaire to pass the time out here when I'm on. I haven't touched cards in years and look at me! Had to beg Ogremon for a deck.  
  
The Regent stopped by and he actually took a few minutes to himself! When has that ever happened before? Can somebody contact Palmon in Archives and get that checked? Seriously though, he's not like himself right now. It's getting me a little ruffled. Any ideas, Sting? You've known him a lot longer than any of us.  
  
****  
  
TO: Stingmon LOCALE: Northern Peaks FROM: Piedmon RE: Re: Advice  
  
I don't know, but based on the information that I was able to gather from previous expeditions into the human world, I'd say that he's rather solidly in the grip of puberty. He's, what, 17 years now? That's a big year for changing for humans according to what I was able to gather. All of my conclusions are in the Archives, if Palmon will let you into the back where my old stuff is kept. She's pretty touchy sometimes. Oh, and when will the sea excursion be over? The different flyers up here need to stretch their wings, and we're kind of stuck.  
  
****  
  
TO: Regional directors LOCALE: Capital FROM: Stingmon RE: Problem  
  
Guys, thanks for the figures. I have no idea what's going on with the Regent, but it's probably something personal. He's not talking to anyone right now about it, and he's actually working harder than his usual; he's pushing himself too far. I think that if we don't do something that he'll finally give out on us. We need to come up with something guys; can we all meet at Digitamamon's in Server? We need to get this ironed out. Thanks.  
  
****  
  
Digitamamon hollered at some unfortunate Rockmon, "Eat and leave! Twenty minutes!" He then flipped an hourglass above their heads. It trickled sand down into the lower part. "When the hourglass is out, get out or don't come back!"  
  
Piedmon walked in and took the scene shrugging. Glancing around, he admitted to himself that the old egg had finally earned the right to boss around the ever-changing horde that beat down his door -- with a few choice exceptions, of course, but that was only natural. Digitamamom ran up to the counter as fast as his legs could carry a ton of egg shell and whatever was inside of it and bowed to his new guest. "Afternoon, Piedmon! The usual table is all set and already seated!" the egg spouted with remarkable cheerfulness, and motioned. "Your drink has been served, and we'll have your usual order in five minutes or so, so just take a load off or something!"  
  
Piedmon took a moment to take a long look around, leaving the egg looking expectantly at him. He saw that the place had grown; what had been a tiny restaurant inside an old train car had expanded to something that took most of the surrounding farmland to stock. With good food and careful management it had eaten all of the surrounding businesses into itself and as such it was the most obviously profitable restaurant in all of Server. Digitamamon's restaurant hadn't changed in a few ways -- it was still badly lit and possessed a constant cloud of smoke around the ceiling. Older wooden tables littered the area, with -gasp!- matched chairs covering every area of the place. Digitamamon had imported a large amount of Gabumon from the north as employees for their politeness and thoroughness. Despite their adjustment to the heat, they had adapted well enough to both the temperature and the hubbub of running the place.  
  
He glanced at the egg. Piedmon hadn't changed much - all gaunt and long limbed, with the twin swords and the painted face -- except that the different ribbons that had adorned his costume had been abandoned. He promptly looked away and the egg got the picture right away, backing off with a murmered apology. Chuckling to himself, Piedmon strode down the crowded floor, the various inhabitants clearing a path for him, and arrived at the table with the others. Such as it was, anyway; Stingmon had yet to arrive, and Leomon wasn't going to make it; still, Palmon had sent at the last minute that she was interested, and her off-again on-again flame Agumon -- Piedmon chuckled to himself at the pun -- was at her elbow, sampling whatever it was that he had ordered.  
  
He strode right up to the table, nodding at Datamon as he went, and collapsed into one of the chairs there. Angemon slid him his cup and Piedmon knocked half of it back before breathing deeply and nodding to the angel. "Thanks."  
  
"No problem," Angemon said, while sipping out of his cup. "I still don't know why you order the '56 when the '87 is so much better."  
  
"My preference," Piedmon said, finishing his cup. "Besides, who ever heard of preferring a newer brandy over a well-aged one?"  
  
"Me," Angemon said with a straight face. They both laughed. Datamon, on the left, finished whatever conversation he was having with Elecmon and nodded towards the door. Piedmon followed his gaze and saw ShogunGeckomon making his large way through the crowd. He had shrunk somewhat over the past years, but hadn't ever lost his sheer bulk. He waddled over to where the others were gathered and nodded.  
  
"Shogun," Piedmon said, inclining his head to the left slightly. "How are things in Little Tokyo?" ShogunGeckomon only glared down at him. Even after almost ten years ShogunGeckomon hadn't forgiven Piedmon for his role in the Apocylomon fiasco. Piedmon had long since figured out that he couldn't please everyone.  
  
"They're just fine," the huge gecko grated out, and turned to Angemon, whom he greeted considerably more amicably.  
  
Datamon said, "He can sure hold a grudge." Elecmon nodded sagely, then glanced up at a segmented humanoid with antenna and short red hair that had just walked to the table. Datamon followed his gaze -- "Ah, Stingmon. We were almost starting to get concerned."  
  
"Sorry guys," Stingmon said, sitting down carefully. The green insect had grown another foot and a half, with blade extensions to match, and was still learning grace in casual movements. It was a constant struggle for the bug. "I had to finish the paperwork before I could leave, and since Leomon filed extra stuff..."  
  
"We get the picture, Sting. It was a normal day in the office." Agumon slid over a tall glass of some unknown liquid, which Stingmon promptly downed with his tube-like tongue. "How's Gomamon taking the new arrivals?"  
  
"Same as every other year," Stingmon responded between shots of... whatever he was drinking. "He's always been a big complainer, but he gets the job done right. Still, that's a lot of Scubamon and Divermon moving through Whamon's usual territory."  
  
Piedmon nodded. Of all of the Digimon gathered here, Stingmon was the sole one that he respected for his strength, which was hidden until he really needed it. Also wielding two swords didn't hurt much, either. "When will the migration be over? The Demidevimon need to stretch their wings, and I'm running out of space real fast."  
  
"Serves 'em right," Shogungeckomon huffed.  
  
"Give them two more weeks, and you'll have all the unrestricted airspace you'll need. Keep in mind, though, that Devidramon need to stay up in the peaks, or you'll have the other Dramon types knocking at your door." Stingmon paused a moment, looked around. Digitamamon had done his job splendidly; there wasn't anyone within hearing distance. "Ok, Datamon. We're clean -- give us the update."  
  
Everyone leaned forward to hear what the diminutive Datamon had to say. It wasn't good news. "Ok guys, you all know how we've had less and less contact with the humans' Internet for the last few months, right?" Nods were traded around the wooden table. "Well, now we're down to about three active servers left for the Internet, with less than a thousand packets of transfer a day, people. I'm pretty sure that they're shutting the thing down." Most of them rocked backwards somewhat; even Piedmon blinked, a sure sign of a reaction. Datamon hurried to explain: "While we're entirely self-powered now in the Digital World, what this means is that we won't be able to explore what's going on in the real world for some time - perhaps forever if the humans don't ever get a comparable system back on-line." They all became quiet for a moment.  
  
Datamon broke the silence by continuing: "Since the Net's going down, we're going to have to completely redo the Seals that keep us safe; you know, reconfigure them for a new type of system. We're not set up for that at all. In fact, I don't think that we could be set up in a year's time. We simply rely too much on our current Seals."  
  
Palmon broke in. "If you all remember, the Seals rely on the dedicated existence of external servers to work. It creates a resonance with them that disallows any kind of movement in while we're more or less free to exit, although coming back requires little short of a miracle. You all know who built it and for what purpose; now, they're used only for our security . We can't keep the things running without the human Internet."  
  
Datamon continued once Palmon was done. "So: without the Seals to rely on, we'll have to find some other way to defend ourselves from outside attack, and I'll be out of a job, not to mention most of central Server. We've got a lot of people at the pyramid complex."  
  
Elecmon responded first. "The Regent's gotta have gotten the report before all of us did; you sent it in to him."  
  
"I pulled it down before it made it to him," Stingmon said quietly.  
  
Piedmon raised an eyebrow. "Surprise." The others reacted somewhat more strongly.  
  
Angemon, of them, was the first to pull himself back together. "You know he's got to know that by now. He doesn't miss a thing; he'll catch that too."  
  
Palmon nodded. "You can't hide something from him long in the Digital World," she declared. "It's like he's always had a rapport with the World that we can't catch."  
  
"I live with the guy," Stingmon said testily. "I know all of this. Still, it'll take him time and that's time for us to plan. You know how he'll react."  
  
Piedmon nodded. "We can't stop him." The others added their assents. "What, then do you propose?"  
  
Stingmon shrugged. "Who wants to take on the extra duties?"  
  
Angemon responded first again. "Guys, I think we're jumping the gun a little bit. What if the humans are simply changing the way that they do things?"  
  
"We can't just react," Palmon said. "We have to plan ahead, to figure out what they're up to." Agumon laid a hand on her shoulder. Emboldened, she continued, "I think that we should send somebody through into the Real World!"  
  
"Are you mad?" ShogunGeckomon responded. "We don't exactly fit in. In fact, once our cover's blown we'll have the humans researching us and treating us as animals. It'll be a disaster."  
  
"We could always employ the Bakemon," Piedmon pointed out, and everybody but ShogunGeckomon and Piedmon stiffened. They all knew what was coming; a confrontation between the two administrators had been building for some time. This time, however, it was not to be. ShogunGeckomon considered the idea intelligently.  
  
"The Bakemon are largely useless; they can't hold their shape for that long, and you'd need a fighter like Phantomon to back them up, which would give them the wrong idea and they'd likely make a mistake in that scenario," the giant responded.  
  
Piedmon grinned. "I could go."  
  
The giant grunted. "Worse idea. If you go, we have nobody to control the Darkness digimon of the north. It'd be back to the old days, and nobody wants to see that."  
  
"We need somebody trustworthy and skilled that we could lose for a month or so." Piedmon could not surpress a victorious smirk.  
  
ShogunGeckomon opened his mouth to respond, then closed it. "You bastard."  
  
Palmon said, "You haven't changed a bit, have you?"  
  
"What?" Piedmon said innocently. "You know that the Regent would approve." Everyone glared at him and looked away except for Stingmon who packed more force behind his glare. That worried Piedmon.  
  
"We can't afford to lose the Regent right now. We've got too much going on in the Digital World to send him off on some improbable mission!" Stingmon said hotly. At the same time, Palmon was pushing the exploration idea at Angemon, which immediately had Datamon disapproving, and the whole table erupted into arguing Digimon. Several of the surrounding Gabumon and their guests stopped what they were doing to watch the argument. Upon the staring, the lot of the arguers calmed down almost immediately and sat down.  
  
Digitamamon decided that food, being the source of all of his happiness, would help these Digimon out too and sent in the Gabumon. It took fully three minutes to serve all of the different administrators and, mostly ignoring each other, they dug in and ate.  
  
"Why don't we ask him that?" Elecmon said distantly. It was the first spoken word in a while. "He'd probably approve." Elecmon ignored the glares he received and continued: "See, if I was the Regent, I'd be real concerned with what was going on in the Real World. It's where he's from and is still his first home. Nobody forgets his first home."  
  
Piedmon cocked his head to one side. "What makes you so sure?"  
  
"He would."  
  
The extra voice brought all of the Digimon -- Administrators and the other guests alike -- around to see an old man standing at the entrance to Digitamamon's restaurant. He still only wore a simple vest and khakis, but walked with the aid of a stick now. His faithful guardian Armadillomon, still as drowsy-looking as always, stood at his side. The crowd parted reverently for him.  
  
All of the Digimon stood, save for Piedmon. "Gennai," Agumon breathed.  
  
Piedmon nodded to the lone empty chair, one that had been reserved for Leomon. "Join the fun." The older Guardian of the Digital world strode slowly into a chair nearby, sighing quietly as he carefully sat down. He then reclined somewhat.  
  
Internally, Piedmon realized that the old Guardian wasn't getting any younger. Out loud, "So why exactly do you support my little suggestion?"  
  
Gennai glanced over from greeting Agumon. "Because he's getting to the age where he needs to be among others of his kind. He can't keep just hiding here in the Digital World." Everyone became quiet at that pronouncement.  
  
Datamon reacted first. "You'd send our primary administrator and possibly our best defender into a region that could destroy him emotionally and return him to us a useless shell?" he asked skeptically. "If that's your analysis, I'm questioning your judgement." This caused a bit of murmuring among all of the onlookers.  
  
Agumon looked up sharply. "Hey! You're a computer-type. Stick to what you know." Piedmon shot the onlookers a glance, and for the most part they decided that there were better things to watch.  
  
"I agree," said Stingmon. "You're not giving the Regent much credit for strength." He shook his head. "He's been on the receiving end of a lot of things, and we've seen what he's worked through to accomplish great things."  
  
"You sure changed your mind fast," Datamon shot back.  
  
"If Gennai says it's a good idea, it's a good idea."  
  
"He's always had great strength of will," Palmon added. "He should be fine." Agumon nodded his agreement, mouth full of pie.  
  
"I'm in," Elecmon shrugged. "I'd trust him with any of my kids; he'll do great!"  
  
"We need someone with advance knowledge of how humans do things," ShogunGeckomon said.  
  
"Also with the ability to pass himself off as a local," Piedmon added.  
  
Datamon looked around, at the different faces of conviction, and gave it up then and there. "Fine, then. Who tells the Regent?"  
  
"I will," said Stingmon.  
  
****  
  
Eighty-five percent.  
  
Eighty five percent!  
  
EIGHTY-FIVE PERCENT!  
  
He would've given all of the nearby minions a lesson in dancing if it wouldn't hurt his ability to command. Eighty-five percent, dammit. Nobody else even came close! Nobody else had that kind of total, complete coverage.  
  
Eighty-five percent. He could have laughed. Jumped for joy. His little model of the globe spun over on his right, showing each immaculate detail, each carefully planned move, that lead to a more complete coverage that all of the modern dictators combined couldn't touch. He knew in his heart that eighty-five percent had been more than the one named Hitler had even dreamed about; Hitler wanted a mere twelve percent of the world, which paled -- absolutely paled -- when compared to what he had accomplished in a mere two years. Paled.  
  
They were pathetic. They really were. He longed for somebody to tell just how pathetic they all were. His offer to them was a silly idea at first, one that took time to catch on, one that he just threw out there to do something. Then they surprised him by jumping at it! They all loved it! It was like he was the Pied Piper to an entire world. He played and all of them, even his enemies of old, simply followed his tune and danced right into his dream. Incredible. Now, he could move on to stages of his plan that even he had admitted to himself were unattainable. Unthinkable.  
  
Surprisingly... unexciting. Not interesting, as he had originally thought.  
  
They had given it to him.  
  
That was the crux of a problem that he hadn't even thought could exist.  
  
It was unfortunate, really, that they had not fostered more resistance to his rule. He had grown... bored with the world. It was no longer a thrill to have another convert. Another person who was swayed to his side -- what did it matter? They would just join the mass of enchanted people who were even now shambling to work, out into what farce their play was these days. They were nothing special. Most of his former rivals had simply bought into it as well. He had no rivals.  
  
With, perhaps, one exception. It gave him, ironically, a sincere reason to go on and continue his little rampage. Ah well, it was time for the nightly examination and he hated missing that.  
  
He got up from his overly ornate chair -- one of those big La-z-boy things that were almost all stuffing -- and walked out to the elevator that served the top floor of his little establishment. He liked to think of it as humble compared to the one he would eventually build, but it served well enough now. He pressed a button, and the doors clunked shut. It opened on the bottom floor of his building, which was something of a basement. He strode over to the counter and leaned out over it which gave him a view of the whole of the room. The room itself was more than three stories tall, and each ounce of space was put to use. Technicians ran around wildly, carrying different printouts and information that they believed useful. Others crouched over their cramped instrument panels, ones that lined the edges of the room, and sent in commands that kept the object of their attentions steady and solid.  
  
As for said object...  
  
It dominated the center of the room and took more than the three stories to contain. It was largely akin to the typical fish bowl, except for its exactness in construction and design, and its use. For rather than fish and water this bowl was filled with a swirl of energy, one that pulsated and hummed and lit the room with its brilliance. When he first started this project, most of the power expenses that he had paid went into powering this room; now, thanks to the energy his device held, it powered itself, the building, the surrounding countryside, and most of the city without losing a gram of potence. The best part of the deal, though, was what the energy was composed of. It was nothing less that 25% of all of the life energy in the world, carefully gathered from all of -them- together, and it was the whole point of everything, from the coverage to the takeover to even the resistance.  
  
As usual, he was given to laughter when seeing the room, and his insidious chuckle echoed throughout the lands of a deadened world... 


	2. Reaction

PAUSE FOR BOURGEOIS LEGALITIES "Digimon" and all characters and situations contained within are copyrighted trademarks of Bandai, Saban Entertainment and Upper Deck. Permission is hereby granted by the author to reproduce this document unless you try to make money off of it; if so, please contact me first at Calcite_McWhalen@hotmail.com. I may be a grown-up cartoon fan but I do know my way around Title 17.  
  
****  
  
Reaction  
  
****  
  
Knock, knock.  
  
Twist, jump, curl, and extend. Just so; an arc in the air, a blur that extends to reveal death. Feet on ground, then off, coming over the rest of the body and forcing the whole body to twist around them until the body reorients itself based on the typical up-down gravitic arrangement. Bring the sabre around, wrist bending to the right, and another unfortunately placed villian loses its head and its life. Keep moving, jump; an arc in the air that the most skilled dancer would envy and be at a loss to repeat. Land on one hand -- ankle slash, bad angle but almost impossible to guard against. Push off with his good hand and bring the thin, toned arm around.  
  
Knock, knock.  
  
The sabre is black. It rests in his right hand and casts all before it in a sinister gleam, glowing slightly to represent its nature. He's already moving, of course, the sabre is through one man and glancing another. His loose hair is forced out of the way by the air flowing around him, while his gauntletted forearms are both, along with the hands, on the sabre and as soon as he rises to the apex of his leap he, with a tingle from the back of his neck, brings it straight down on the last enemy. The sabre's width increases on the way down but it maintains its killing edge; and whatever poor soul is standing in the way has just been given a one-way ticket to the afterlife. He rolls as he lands into a ready stance, then relaxes somewhat - just somewhat. Then reality caught up with the Regent.  
  
"Come in," he said, glancing around the spartan training area to the sliding door. He took a strategically placed water bottle and knocked back half of it while the awaiting individual strode in. The individual said nothing. He merely set up into a ready stance and extended both of his purple arm sabers, waiting for the other to react.  
  
The Regent examined his opponent. Stingmon was an Adult-level digimon with almost nine years' worth of straight combat experience and a goodly amount of power to match. He had been a Wormmon until a fiasco a few years back, then had Digivolved for good at that point. This particular Stingmon possessed a cocky look in his compound eyes. The Regent considered him a worthy opponent. He replaced the water bottle's cap and threw it to one side, raising his still glowing sabre and settling into his personal ready stance, lip curling up into a mixture of smirk and outright smile.  
  
Stingmon also studied his opponent briefly. He wielded a long, black energy sabre with a stance and relaxed look that showed his years in wielding it. His crisp blue eyes surveyed Stingmon with respect. His indigo hair was pulled back into a loose tail, with only a few rebellious strands loose. He wore the blue-lined gray suit of his youth, enlarged for his more developed upper torso, a simple necklace that reached under his shirt, and the gauntlets of his past life. He also wore a ready smirk upon a face with a single blemish: a set of four matched scars on the left side of his face, flowing from his mouth down towards his shoulder.  
  
They stood there for the eternity of a second. Then Stingmon moved.  
  
The Regent was ready; he had been for all of that morning. He jumped directly upwards, over the forward slash of Stingmon, and swung down at Stingmon's back while clearing him. Stingmon, moving on instinct, tucked into a roll that got him out of the swing's range while allowing him to spring back up. The Regent landed as he had jumped and both stopped moving again, their backs to one another. A breath passed; the Regent's smirk grew into a brief smile and then fell before his concentration.  
  
This time, he moved first. He launched himself at Stingmon, who parried his thrust with one saber and struck at the next blink with his other weapon. The Regent simply sidestepped while forcing the blocking saber to one side, striking out at Stingmon's now unprotected side. Stingmon responded by striking back at the Regent with the other blade, bringing it at the Regent's side, and the two energy blades clashed with a loud bang and much sizzle. Stingmon brought the other saber in a stab towards the Regent, but the man had moved already, jumping over Stingmon and swinging his saber down again; this time, the insect had no time to roll and was forced to block with one saber up in the air. The Regent landed and moved his saber forwards, ignoring the off-balanced insect's attempt to stop it, and placed the tip of it on Stingmon's throat.  
  
The insect relaxed, then slumped somewhat. "You aren't getting any worse, are you?" He deactivated both of his energy blades. The Regent lifted the point off of Stingmon's throat and carelessly tossed the glowing weapon in the air. It shimmered briefly and disappeared upon leaving his hand.  
  
"No, I can't say that I am," he responded. "How are things this fine morning, Sting?" A fine morning it was; it was clear and cool, no more than 60 degrees outside. The Regent's favorite time of year. Stingmon produced from a bag he had left at the door a longish list and a pad; he took a pen from behind his left ear, where it had been undisturbed by the spar.  
  
"Eh. I've got the updates, whenever you're ready." The Regent also liked it when his mornings moved right along; he didn't like to waste time on little things when a whole world waited for him. Stingmon sometimes wondered why the Regent bothered to keep up his morning workout and sparring session now that all of the major threats to the Digital World had been destroyed or defused, but he reasoned that the current ruler of the Digital World had earned the right to be mildly paranoid when it came to his world.  
  
The man took another big drink from his bottle, recently reclaimed from the floor, and said, "Go right ahead."  
  
"Ok, here goes," Stingmon said, then proceeded to rattle off a large list of numbers that, upon assuming the command of the Digital World at large, the Regent had asked to be provided with each morning. Population, deaths, births, economic movement, migration timings, factories, everything that could possibly be used for making any kind of decision in the Digital World. Stingmon had no doubts that the Regent, in his areas of expertise, was an absolute genius.  
  
The Regent reacted when Stingmon mentioned Server's factory problems. "Leomon didn't tell me that a Gazimon caused the accident. Is he all right?" Stingmon nodded. "Where's the replacement part coming out of?"  
  
"The Pyramid complex built it."  
  
"Ok. Get it there as fast as we can -- Leomon hates to be kept waiting for more than a day. He can really overreact sometimes."  
  
"We know, sir," Stingmon said grinning. The Regent nodded his head, conceding the point.  
  
"Has Gomamon finished moving the Scubamon and Divermon back to the Seadramon territory? He should have been done by yesterday, but because of the storms he got held up."  
  
"Yes, they've made it safely across Whamon's area." The Regent let out a breath.  
  
"We need to get Whamon to forgive them at some point in time. It's been ten years, right?" Stingmon nodded. "He doesn't need to keep that up -- it'll be bad for everyone concerned. Get one of Angemon's counselors down there as soon as one's available, okay?"  
  
"Got it," Stingmon said, making a note of it as he did so. Angemon was a strong believer in feeling good and he had trained a large group of Wizard-type Digimon to help other Digimon through personal troubles. When he saw the program's success on his home area of File Island, he allowed other Administrators to hire them out, and donated an entire corps of them to the Regent. The Regent, in turn, allowed them to keep their titles as Angemon's Helpers, which hadn't done anything to hurt Angemon's sterling reputation either.  
  
"Once that's done, get Piedmon on the line and tell him that he's got three months to get his Devi-type flyers in the air and trained before the Dramon-types need the airspace for their migration. He'll be happy to hear that."  
  
"You and he always did get along well," Stingmon commented as he took the order down.  
  
"We have a lot in common."  
  
Stingmon let that one pass. "Palmon's almost finished with the last few sections of the Archives, and then she'll be moving on to West Metal City for her population analysis." The Regent nodded once. "Also, we have the usual mix of village problems -- people not getting along, a few bandits, etcetera. We're deploying what Protectors that we need to the areas that are most problematic, and of course the local governors were the ones to request them." The Regent nodded again. Stingmon sighed to himself; the Regent's thought lines were somewhere else. He decided to get to the most important stuff.  
  
"We think that the human's Internet might be getting shut off," Stingmon said softly and that caught the Regent's attention; he spun around surprised and dropped his water bottle. The faint whisper of fear was on his face, despite his impossible self-control, and it was probable that only Stingmon would be able to see it. That was natural. Stingmon was the Regent's personal assistant and Digimon partner, and he knew that despite the great front that the Regent could put up that still under there was the very human Ken Ichijouji. Six years in the Digital world had certainly softened Ken's recollection of his first home but it could never destroy the fondness that Ken had for the Real World.  
  
"When did you find that out?" Ken responded with just a touch of the fear eking out of his emotional armor.  
  
"The others - that is, Datamon had begun to notice the downturn in Internet activity about three months ago, but it was not large enough for him to become concerned. The traffic really only started to drop in the last few days, when most of the servers were taken offline at once -- all of the corporate ones, at any rate. He sent us an e-mail and we -- the different regional directors -- gathered last night to talk about it." Ken couldn't keep the startled expression off of his face, and Stingmon braced himself silently.  
  
"What happened to the e-mail that would have been sent to me?" Ken asked quietly. His tone indicated that he knew precisely what had happened. Stingmon sighed again and looked up.  
  
"Ken, I was trying to protect you from your first reaction." Ken's eyes lit up with a touch of anger.  
  
"Do you think," he bit out quietly, "that my 'first reaction' would jeopardize the situation?"  
  
"No!" Stingmon blurted. "I just didn't want you to get worried or be upset!" At that, the anger left Ken's eyes and was replaced by something far worse: a look of disappointment and sadness.  
  
"Stingmon," he said gently, "we set up the mail system to keep us all in the know specifically so that we wouldn't have to worry about any of this. Don't worry; I'll be fine." Stingmon looked up with righteous indignation at the response.  
  
"I'm not a Child - level digimon, Ken-chan," he said. "I made a decision knowing the consequences. I just wanted you to not worry about it for once."  
  
"I have to worry about it. It's my job," Ken said.  
  
"Sometimes other people can do that job too, Ken," Stingmon said. "You're not the only one who can take care of things sometimes."  
  
"I have to try," Ken responded, somewhat more forcefully.  
  
"Now you're being stupid, Ken-chan," the insect responded. Ken glanced up sharply, but thought better when he saw the serious and concerned look on Stingmon's face.  
  
"I know that I can push myself a bit far, but that's what I do. The Digital World is more important than my immediate health, Stingmon. I owe it too much," Ken said. Stingmon decided to leave it at that; he wouldn't fight over this territory again. He'd lost too many times.  
  
"Moving on," the bug said, "we talked and Palmon came up with an interesting idea: she proposed that we send somebody out and find out what was going on."  
  
Ken shook his head. "If the Internet's really coming down, you'd need somebody who..." He trailed off, realizing where Stingmon was steering the conversation. "Did you get coaching from Piedmon?" he ended somewhat crossly.  
  
"No," Stingmon responded. "Approaching you like this was Datamon's idea." The left side of Ken's mouth turned down somewhat.  
  
"That certainly fits."  
  
"You don't like it?"  
  
"No, and for a simple reason. Who's going to reconstruct the Seals to respond to something different if I'm gone? I'm the only one who really knows how they work; I've tried to explain them to everyone, and even Vademon is at a loss to have any idea how they work. I've got to get them changed out and set to conform to a new way of doing things."  
  
"Regardless, we do need a spy or something that can tell us what's going on over on the other side."  
  
Ken turned away, frustrated. "We can't do that! I can't leave and nobody else can go." Struggling with the problem in his head, he clenched a fist.  
  
Stingmon said softly, "Gennai agreed that you should go."  
  
Ken abruptly unclenched his fist, turning to Stingmon with an apprehensive light. "Gennai appeared?" Ken had a point there; the old Guardian hadn't reappeared since the fiasco five years ago, and had made it clear at that point that nothing short of a major catastrophe was going to bring him out of his ne'er-seen home. Apparently, he thought the latest problem a major catastrophe indeed.  
  
"Yes, he did. He said that it was time you stop hiding in the Digital World, and I agree with him," Stingmon pronounced. Ken turned away again softly, walking out of the room. Stingmon hurried to keep up with him as he went into the hall, leaving the water bottle behind on the floor. "Ken-chan?"  
  
Ken shook his head. "Gennai's rarely wrong, but he's never given us the whole story." He breathed out deeply and said, "He's also right about me." Stingmon, who had caught up completely by the last statement, nodded. "I've never really fit in the real world, but I can't very well replace it with this world. It's not my home; it's lacking other humans."  
  
"You could go see your parents," Stingmon suggested softly. It was the wrong suggestion.  
  
"No, I'm not going to go anywhere where I could be noticed. I'm just going out to figure out what's going on, and to try and get more comfortable with others in general." Ken kept his tone level.  
  
"Your mind's made up," Stingmon noticed, and carefully kept the smile on his face small and relieved rather than big and thrilled like he wanted it to be.  
  
"It is," Ken responded, "and we've got a lot to do before I can leave, so let's go." With that, he charged down the hallway towards the command center of the Digital Capital with Stingmon behind.  
  
****  
  
The Command Center was a relaxed place, run by meticulously trained operators, and had the air of a quietly professional operation. Ken and Stingmon broke over the Command Center like a summer storm with Ken fully in Regent command mode. "All non-essential personnel here in the Center, out!" Ken hollered, shattering the quiet air, walking right over to a nearby console. "Geckomon, get me the full list of places that we cover here in the Center and a technical readout on the Seals. Pumpkinmon, get Biyomon on the line, and somebody get this place double-crewed. Stingmon, get Agumon raised as soon as you can. Move, people!" Digimon were now running all around the place, ducking and mostly streaming out of the room in excited murmering while the few chosen operatives got to work feverishly on their tasks. Ken continued: "Mottimon, get the whole Capital locked down of non-essential personnel and get the Protectors ready to run the place a little tightly. Cancel any vacations that get in the way. This isn't a drill, people!"  
  
He glanced over at Stingmon, who was over at a comm console, and said, "Stingmon, while I'm gone, you're in charge of day-to-day. You've done it before; this time it'll be a bit easier." A few Digimon left in the room in the know chuckled somewhat at that. "Get Leomon and Piedmon down here to give you a hand and have them get their favored minions to take over their duties. Agumon's gonna be in charge here in the Center with Biyomon backing him up; she'll have to get somebody to cover for her for a few days or so." Ken started to work the console he had chosen.  
  
"All set, Regent!" the Geckomon replied. Ken glanced his way briefly.  
  
"Okay then, get word to the Chosen Chamber that we need my D-3 powered up for a few days. Tell the Keeper to haul ass -- I need this as of today, in a few hours!" The Geckomon dived to another console and started to slam in orders. "Stingmon, get the teleporter ready for incoming Digimon."  
  
"Already done, Regent," he called out, distracted. "Aquilamon on the line for you!"  
  
"Send it through!" he yelled over the conversations of the newly arriving double crew -- some twenty strong Digimon -- while stepping away from his console. He walked towards the screen as the white-brown visage of Aquilamon appeared on the screen. He was the Protectors' commander and had been flying out to East Server on his yearly vacation when the announcement was made. He had somehow found a communication tower all the way out there. "What's up, Aquilamon?"  
  
"Confirming orders, sir," Aquilamon said crisply. "You're putting us on Level 2?"  
  
"You'd better believe it, Aquila. Get yourself down here as fast as you can and get a platoon with you when you do."  
  
"Acknowledged," the bird said, saluting smartly. "I'll be down in a few hours." With that, he signed off and the Regent turned towards the rest of the room, now totally crewed. The transporter in the corner flashed once and the orange dinosaurish figure of Agumon stood there, composing himself. Ken walked right over to him.  
  
"What's up, Regent?" the little guy said. "What do you need?"  
  
"I'm heading out of town for a while," the Regent said, and Agumon's eyes lit up. "You're in charge of taking care of this room and thusly the whole shebang while I'm out. You've got Biyomon on the way to back you up and you'll report to Stingmon for major instructions. The list of things you need to know was prepared by Geckomon over there." He waved in the general direction of the Digimon in question.  
  
"Okay! I'll do it!" Agumon said enthusiastically. Ken motioned towards the head console and Agumon walked over there, barking out his own orders as he went. Once he was there, he turned towards the Regent and asked, "What should I tell these guys?"  
  
It was something that in all the rush Ken had forgotton. Calming down somewhat, he composed himself and decided on what he was going to say. "Okay people, here's what's going on: I'm headed to the Real World for a while, so things'll be a little different around here. Agumon's gonna be in charge of daily and Stingmon's gonna keep an eye on you." Heads nodded around the room and a few Digimon leaded back while Ken continued: "It's going to get crazy for a while when people are wondering what's going on. I don't want to start to start a panic, so try to keep this quiet for as long as you can. I've got Sting working on PR stuff for long-term but we don't anticipate that I'll be gone that long. Other than that, your duties will be the same as if we were in a war situation; just don't worry about the war part of that. I simply need the place watched very carefully while I'm gone. Any questions, talk to Agumon. Take care, people," he finished and ducked out the front door, Stingmon following him out into an empty hallway. Behind them they could hear Agumon start hollering and the transporter whine again, presumably for Biyomon.  
  
"Agumon already knew," Ken said.  
  
"He was at the meeting. The speech needed work," Stingmon said.  
  
"I was in a hurry," Ken defended himself indignantly. "We need to get to the Chamber to pick up my D-3."  
  
"No need. He sent this for you," a voice pronounced from behind him. Ken spun around and confronted the mystery voice; it was a person in a long flowing robe, marked with the sigils of the Chosen, and a hood covering her head completely. Her left hand held an unusual device -- a small computer with two screens, colored completely black with white outlining. She held it out expectantly.  
  
Ken reached forward and took it, raising an eyebrow when he did. "Who are you?"  
  
The woman - girl? - shook her head. "I am one of the Keeper's acolytes. He wishes me to remind you that your darkness can consume you in the real world." With that, she stepped back and quickly faded from view, becoming translucent and finally disappearing.  
  
"I don't remember the Keeper having any 'acolytes'," Ken said amusedly, glancing down at the relic. His D-3 had been powered down and sent back to the Chamber once he had no more use for it but even now, six years later, it fit in his hand like it always had. His other hand reached back around his neck and felt the place where there was only a small mark to show where he had been first subjected to the Digital World's more... evil inhabitants. "Translation: don't use the Spore in the real world," he murmered. "Got it. You always did overreact." His fingers came back from around his neck and brushed his chest where his Crest hung from its band.  
  
"Uh, Ken?" Stingmon ventured. "Are you okay?" Stingmon remembered well what that little spot was for. He had seen firsthand what it did to Ken and, even now that he was capable of controlling it and the power within, it still made Stingmon a little nervous. Of course any power that stemmed from a personal darkness made Sting a little worried.  
  
"Just remembering." Ken glanced around, then walked over to a nearby monitor. "Have we lost track of the accounts that we've got running in the real world?" Ken had, in a previous life, made sport out of manipulating the banking world -- funneling money to different accounts from different accounts, moving capital around and watching it grow by investing it in funds and stocks. He had established several accounts at major banks and, even as the Regent, he would occasionally check on them. He had accumulated quite a bit of money; but now, with the Internet down --  
  
Stingmon was taken aback. "Uh... yes. We've got no idea what's going on there," Stingmon replied. Ken lowered his head briefly. "What's the problem, Ken?"  
  
Ken chose to make his explanation brief. "Here in the Digital world, we're set up so that money is fun, but not necessary for life. In the real world, everything revolves around having as much money as you need to do things. If you don't have any money, you can't get anything done." Having said that, Ken reached out and pulled off one of his gauntlets. He shook it and grabbed the disc that fell out, placing it in the back pocket of his outfit. "I'll be able to check on things when I get there with this," he grunted, replacing the gauntlet.  
  
Stingmon nodded his understanding, then looked away at the far wall. "Ken-chan... are you sure that you want to go through with this?"  
  
"Yeah," Ken responded. "I'm not sure at all if this is a good idea. I know that somebody has to go, though, and I guess it'll have to be me because I know how to fit in."  
  
Stingmon turned and looked back at Ken. "You use that thing," he said, pointing at the D-3, "any time you want something. You got it?" Ken looked back at Stingmon. "I mean that, Ken. You've got an entire world to help you."  
  
Ken turned away from the monitor. "Yeah, I got it," he responded, smiling slightly. "Let's get moving to the Pyramid." With that Ken strode down the hall. Stingmon followed him at a slight distance. The hallway lead out into an open atrium of sorts for performances, carnivals, shows -- whatever somebody might need a big open area for. Ken reached his left hand into the air and it flared with dark power, glowing ebony. Abruptly he left the ground, spinning around slightly to make sure that Stingmon was following him. Stingmon was indeed, his thin wings pumping furiously; and together the two of them left the Capital building for Central Server and Datamon's pyramid.  
  
****  
  
The air was crisp and cool; no wind to speak of. They passed over Capital City and its inhabitants' houses, moving inland away from the heat. Stingmon and the Regent flying somewhere was not an unfamiliar sight for the people living there, and a few of them waved cheerfully up at the twosome before returning to their daily chores. Of those who saw, a few of them remarked on the direction and wondered what business the Regent could have at the desert at this time of year. Ken and Stingmon didn't wave back, choosing rather to focus on flying and their goals.  
  
Ken did take some time to merely look around the scenery. He remembered it being far different just five years ago; despoiled and desolate from a war between two strong powers, subject to constant raids and attacks. Now it showed nothing but a passive, beautiful forested country. He always looked down at this part of the land when passing over it. It kept him humble and it reminded him just how far he had come, with the aid of his friends and Stingmon.  
  
It took them two hours to cross the mountain range that seperated the coastal, temperate region of Server from the desert center of the continent. The heat was stifling and both of them increased their speed somewhat to keep the hot air from settling on them. Another half an hour of travel was required to make it to the Pyramid, which was in the concentric center of the desert. The Pyramid hadn't changed much; it was still an upside-down design with a massive basement. It was, however, artificially cooled down, and approaching the awkward building they could feel where they crossed the line into where Datamon's coolers worked. Still sweating rather profusely, they landed at the base of the Pyramid to find Datamon waiting for them.  
  
"Come in," he said, and led them into the Pyramid. Inside it had changed from a mass of stonework into a modern structure with carpets, professional walls, and the occasional vending machine. It was staffed by many different species, all going about their business quietly. The different halls of the place led to offices, computer rooms, and monitoring stations for the Seals. Datamon led them over to an elevator, talking: "The Seals are powered down to the lowest that we've ever had them be; if anyone wanted to break in it wouldn't take much power to get them to shut down entirely." He pushed a button and the car descended, down underground. It became much cooler as Datamon continued: "We're also set up for letting you out of here; keep in mind that out doesn't mean in and that you'll have to call ahead to get back. We'll probably keep things running a bit low power anyway in case of an emergency. Who am I reporting to right now?"  
  
"Agumon's at the Center and Stingmon's taking over my duties," Ken said.  
  
The car stopped, and Datamon motioned outwards with his hand. "Go on in, and be safe," he intoned, and pressed a button on the car. As soon as Stingmon and Ken stepped out, he had closed the door and shot back up.  
  
"He's in a hurry," Stingmon said darkly. Ken shook his head and walked in. Datamon's Pyramid had long since sealed the hole in the floor that had led to Etemon's old Dark Network and in its place was a simple console, with a medium-sized monitor. It was displaying something that Ken hadn't seen in a long time: an open Digital Gate.  
  
They both stopped, staring at the Gate, and for Ken the idea of leaving the home he had lived in for six years finally hit home; he pulled back a bit, a reluctance in his eyes. He looked around the room quietly, taking a moment to organize his thoughts.  
  
Stingmon looked to him quietly.  
  
Ken reached out to Stingmon with his left hand, and Stingmon returned the expression. They shook hands then, their grips firm. "Take care of my world for me, Sting," Ken managed to say, face turned downwards, hair covering his weakness. Stingmon nodded once, proud and sad, and Ken released him. He walked slowly over to the Gate and reached out his Digivice: instantly, he shone brightly, was deconstructed into a data stream, and sucked into the Gate. The flash lit up the room and dazzled Stingmon; then it was gone, the gate closed, and he was alone.  
  
He walked away from the gate.  
  
******  
  
The alarm was not one that anybody in the Control Room had ever expected to go off. It was a custom job done entirely by the President's three personal assistants; they had given the technicians a brief and thorough explanation of what it was and what to do if it sounded, but other than that it was treated as a quiet abberation by their boss. None of them really believed any of it; it was checked like anything else at the shift change but other than that it was completely ignored.  
  
So when it suddenly went off, at 7:53 PM, it created quite the stir.  
  
"What the hell?" a confused technician asked. "I can't find the kill switch!"  
  
"What's it for?"  
  
"Somebody turn that damned thing off!"  
  
This went on for several seconds until the head technician remembered the oft-ignored switch and slapped it, turning it off. The relief in the room was palpable. He motioned to one of his assistants: "Take over for a moment." He remembered the instuctions quite clearly. He left the room, walked to the end of the hall, and entered the elevator, keying for the President's floor.  
  
He arrived at the top floor where the President kept his quarters. It was a dark place lit quietly by several spotlights, which were on different consoles. Walking quietly on the stuffed carpet, hoping his knees weren't shaking too much, he rounded the curve of the building to see the President and one of his 'assistants' conversing quietly about something. The techie took a moment to examine the President; a large, built man in a spotless black tuxedo, his long dark indigo hair down the back of his jacket, and his dark eyes watching the 'assistant' quietly. The techie couldn't see much of the assistant; only the eyes -- dark, mean eyes -- were visible.  
  
The President evidently noticed the technician's entrance, and motioned him forward. "Come in, Mr. Iverson," he said pleasantly. His voice was heavy and cultured. "What would you like to tell me?"  
  
Mr. Iverson couldn't help but notice that the 'assistant' had turned her intense gaze from the President and was peeling layers off of him with it. Strengthening his resolve, he turned and looked the President in the eyes. "Sir, the Digital World Transfer alarm went off at 7:53 PM. We have the analysis of events leading up to and following the alarm sounding for you, ready in your computer now." He waited for their reaction. The assistant's eyes narrowed abruptly while the President merely raised one eyebrow.  
  
"I trust you are the technician in charge tonight, Mr. Iverson?" he asked calmly.  
  
"I am, sir." Iverson was beginning to calm down.  
  
"Can you tell me from the instruments and your observations what exactly happened tonight?"  
  
"Yes, sir," Iverson said, gaining a measure of confidence. "At 7:41 , the Digital Seals' power output dipped almost 80%. At 7:52, the Seals admitted a single person or single group of persons into this world from the Digital world. At 7:53, our alarm sounded; at 7:55, the Digital Seals ran their power back up into 50% territory. It's currently 7:57 now, sir."  
  
"Indeed," the President replied quietly. "Thank you for your time and vigilance, Mr. Iverson. Assistant?" he called out, and Iverson turned to find that the 'assistant' had left the darkness of the far end of the room and walked right up to him.  
  
He stared increduously. "Why, you're only a --" Then its eyes flashed once, and Iverson collapsed limply to the floor. The assistant made a satisfied sound.  
  
"You didn't have to put that much power behind it," the President admonished with a chuckle.  
  
"He didn't say anything to me," the assistant replied stubbornly. "He's supposed to acknowledge me when I'm in the room. It's only polite."  
  
"That is true," the President conceded. He stretched and walked over to the wall windows, staring out over the city. "Still, his report is unsettling. Do you suppose that the Digimon Emperor has decided to take a look around the real world? He has locked himself in there for six years now."  
  
"No, he'd send a force, not a single person. I doubt that."  
  
"As do I. He never did have a way to make his Rings work on humans. At any rate, put a team on this and head it yourself. Track down whatever he sent through his Gate and bring it to me alive for questioning. If he sent through an entourage, bring them all; they all may prove useful yet."  
  
The assistant turned to go, stopped. "Sir, what if the Resistance makes a move on this?"  
  
"Kill them if they appear. This is too important for them to interfere," he said, never once taking his eyes off of the darkened horizon. "They should be adequately distracted by our little game tonight, however, to give you any trouble for at least a week. Oh, and take that," motioning to the body behind them, "and put him in the infirmary until he recovers. His memory is completely erased?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
"Good. Go and do likewise to anyone who heard the report, then get on your assignment." The assistant showed the trace of a smile and left the room.  
  
The assistant left leaving the President staring out over the skyline. "Ah, Ichijouji," he murmered softly, "you always were my best tool. You did something I could never do; you defeated the Chosen on their terms! Someday soon your Seals will prove insufficient to stop me and I can finally properly thank you for your trouble. No, indeed..." 


	3. Rebel Yell

PAUSE FOR BOURGEOIS LEGALITIES "Digimon" and all characters and situations contained within are copyrighted trademarks of Bandai, Saban Entertainment and Upper Deck. Permission is hereby granted by the author to reproduce this document unless you try to make money off of it; if so, please contact me first at Calcite_McWhalen@hotmail.com. I may be a grown-up cartoon fan but I do know my way around Title 17.  
  
****  
  
Rebel Yell  
  
****  
  
She knew herself well.  
  
She was seventeen, tall but not too tall, thin but not fragile, female but not overly endowed. She was a creature of toned muscles and taut skin rather than pale and fragile. She was not a quiet person; rather, she would speak her mind and be done with it. She didn't open up deeply much anymore except to one particular old friend and confidant, however. Like most teenage girls she was a master of talking a lot while saying nothing. She possessed smooth lavender hair, tied back in a bun while on a job; she'd rather have it down, but it could get her killed in the field. She had quiet brown eyes the color and consistency of honey. A few prospective guys had told her that it was her best feature, something she found herself still being flattered at. She was Miyako Inuoe.  
  
She knew her enemy well.  
  
The Odaiba Group was a Japanese-run corporation which's leadership operated out of a formerly small suburban area appropriately named Odaiba. The group had three direct expansions, forty-one divisions, and over ten billion American dollars in revenue per month. It produced everything from toasters to cars to toilet paper to reactor cores, and owned land in one hundred eleven different countries. It was run by a loose conglomeration of boards and vice presidents and had an impressive legal tangle leading to its real leader, a man who simply went by The President, or Mr. President to dignitaries who happened to enter his room. He was encased in an unusual building constructed in the center of the suburb; a fairly large, perfectly round tower that took over one hundred billion yen to construct, most of it on fragile research technology. Miyako knew little about the machines but she knew that it was the devices of the Odaiba Group, their exotic new energy sources, that were poisoning her world.  
  
"Miyako?" a quiet voice asked beside her. Right; she was doing something about it, though. She was stopping the advance of the mysterious Mr. President. Right? Right. That's why she was on this boat, a few hours out from the island chain of Southern Japan, going to destroy one of their reactor production facilities.  
  
She turned to look at the adolescent boy next to her. Still shorter than her, with his hair in the usual perfect cut, he had however stretched out so that he looked a bit older while keeping the almost angelic appearance that he always had possessed. Calm. Composed, to the point of being completely unflappable. Some people claimed that he didn't care much about anything. They made a decent team; she cared enough for the both of them. He seemed to be confused at her current behavior, which made perfect sense; it was a chilly if not cold day in hell before she found herself brooding.  
  
That meant that on cold days she was free to brood, and it wasn't getting any warmer out there.  
  
"Don't worry about me, Iori," she said quietly. "I'll be ready when we get there." The boat they were on was crewed with almost ten others; the boat itself, the Lady Celesta, was a loan from a family friend of Miyako's. It was an old tub, but it ran, and it ran well enough to get the crew to the factory in about a day from her base, an old TV transmitting station on a harbor located less than an hour from the round headquarters of the Odaiba Group. Currently, she was at the bow of the boat, keeping watch. The others would be below deck relaxing or running the ship.  
  
She couldn't see much, though. Not only was there quite a bit of fog, there was also the matter of it being almost eight at night. These days, that meant that it was dark outside. Glancing up, she took in Iori again. "Hey there, Iori," she said, noting the mildly glum face of her comrade. Iori may have been a solid person to back her up and a ground to reality but that meant that she could read him like a book, which was much to his irritation. "You need to chill a bit, okay? I'll be fine."  
  
"It's not you I'm worried about," he replied darkly and turned away. She frowned slightly; this was not typical Iori behavior.  
  
"What's up, Iori?" she asked quietly, no darkness in her voice. "You're not really worried, are you?"  
  
"It's not you I'm worried about," he repeated, and motioned towards the far end of the boat. Following his gaze she saw the object of his troubling and nodded in agreement. Resting on the side of the boat, her long burnette hair pulled back into something tucked under her hat, eyes away from them, was a rather new member of their group; Hikari Kamiya had decided that she had wanted in on the action. She had been a general errand girl and help-at-the-base kind of person but she had changed her mind; why, Miyako couldn't imagine. Miyako had privately decided to keep her off of the field and had put Hikari through the wringer to discourage her but Hikari, showing a hidden reserve of perseverance, had somehow managed to pass the rigorous physical and mental conditioning tests that Miyako ran on her. It was, in a perverse way, just as well; the sixth member of Miyako's personal squad had taken sick lately and was down for a month or so.  
  
"Ah," she said. "I tested her for everything imaginable. She's faster if not stronger than pretty much everyone else, and she turned out to be good at improvising. She's probably more set than I am for this, but yeah, I still don't like this."  
  
Iori Hida had a different idea. "It's not that -- what if we run into one of the Odaiba workers? She'd probably rather have us talk them out of working there, rather than stunning him and booking it." His piece said, he turned stormy eyes out towards the sea.  
  
Miyako had reservations of the same sort, despite her best judgement, but for a different reason. Hikari had been muttering lately about how useless she felt, and suddenly joining the that felt like desperation to prove something from Miyako's point of view. That kind of thirst was all well and good while they were safe, but out in the field it'd be nothing but trouble. She got up -- an accomplishment in itself, since it was still quite cold out -- and walked on over to where Hikari was sitting down. Iori remained where he was, not looking at Miyako as she got up.  
  
Hikari noted her presence as she drew near with a glance up and, "Hello, Miyako. What's up?" Miyako sat down next to her and glanced at her; she merely looked back at Miyako, relaxed and open. Inwardly, Miyako chuckled; Hikari was one of the few constants in her life. Hikari was the rare person that was completely open with herself and others; her openness shined as a light in the darkness of the day and age. She claimed when questioned by others about it that it was simply the way that she was. Perhaps, a dark thought whispered to Miyako, that was why she recovered the fastest from their former attempts to right the wrong, six years ago. This time, she vowed silently, we will not fail.  
  
"Miyako?" Hikari questioned, looking and sounding concerned, breaking up Miyako's thought line. "What's up? I'm only a little nervous, if that's what you want."  
  
Miyako shook herself silently. "Nothing really... I just wanted to, you know, sound you out and all. This is your first field work, you know, and we all know how hard it can be -- there's always surprises and nobody really knows what's going on most of the time." Hikari listened without moving. "So I wanted to know if there's any kind of question or worry you have so that I can iron it out, yeah?"  
  
"Will there be anyone else at wherever we're going?" Hikari asked.  
  
"I don't know," Miyako answered without looking at the other girl's eyes. "We never visit a place that's running or staffed, but there have been people there. Iori and Yomca are pretty good at getting them out of there." Miyako chose not to add that those 'helped' were usually carried out unconscious.  
  
"Okay. What do we do once the job's done?"  
  
"We get back in the boat and go home, then figure out what went wrong and fix it."  
  
"Huh?" Hikari looked confused.  
  
The left side of Miyako's face twitched. "There isn't such a thing as a perfect job, Hikari. We always find something wrong to do while we're out there, from the boat's engine stalling out to the wrong blend in the package. When we get back, we have everyone talk about what happened and get it all fixed, just so we can find something else to go wrong. Our resident planner Sam likes to say that eventually we'll have run out of things that can go wrong and we'll knock out the entire company!" The last part was delivered with gusto, one finger raised into the fog.  
  
Hikari giggled a bit. "I can see why everyone else follows you."  
  
"Right. Now, anything else? We'll be there in about an hour, so now's the time."  
  
She looked around an bit and, seeing no one else in hearing range, asked urgently, "How do you deal with the butterflies in the stomach and the wondering?"  
  
Miyako grinned a bit. "I thought you weren't nervous."  
  
"Shut up," Hikari shot back, but without any force. To Miyako's practiced eye Hikari did indeed look nervous; enough perhaps to interfere with her concentration. That didn't sit too well with her, but she decided to trust Hikari.  
  
"You go out there and do it. Once you've done it once, you'll always be able to do it again. Just keep your mind on what you're doing and you'll be fine."  
  
Hikari said, "Oh." She looked down at the stuff she was carrying in a pack; a heartbeat detector and infrared / ultraviolet vision goggles. As the sixth member of the team she was expected to act as the eyes of the team, to make sure that nothing went wrong and that nobody unexpected appeared, at least not without the team knowing that they were coming. It was the only job that wasn't directly connected to the package or keeping the team alive in case of confrontation, and it was the only job that Miyako would let her do, for now.  
  
Iori interrupted their attempt at conversation with a wild shout, one that had been building over the last twelve hours of sea travel. "Land! We're approaching the landing point!" Obligingly, the fog parted and showed those on board a view of the far coast. The crew and passengers of the Lady Celesta sprung into action, readying themselves for landing.  
  
Miyako leaped to her feet, steadying what she was carrying in her pack, and motioned to Hikari. "Come on! We need to get with the others: there's lots to do before we can get off!" Having said that, she proceeded to yank Hikari up and half-drag her towards the hold, a huge noisy place that housed both their other stuff and was next to the engine compartment.  
  
Miyako wasn't kidding. The whole crew would get down to the hold, where the actual uniforms would be put on: complex things with equipment to neutralize radar and enhanced sensors. They were also equipped with smoke grenades and two-way radios. Nobody liked the security risk that they posed, but they also didn't have a lot of money to spare being equipped with more fancy stuff. In addition, each person had to prep the stuff that they were carrying with power sources. They had people keep ahold of the more delicate pieces of their equipment -- in case the ship rocked -- but it was all inactive. Miyako was carrying the package itself, and she slid the charge into the canister and clipped on a power unit -- a device that was, unfortunately, manufactured only by the Odaiba Group. Iori and Yomca, a black-haired loner, were checking their stun batons. These were essentially enhanced tasers; they couldn't kill a target, merely stun it, but they had much better range than a traditional handheld taser. Hikari and Kevin, an American exchange student at first but now a permanent resident, had the detection equipment. That left Aya, a bitter schoolgirl out for revenge on the Odaiba Group, to handle the more complex tranceiving station. She was in charge of communications and telling them when to pull out. Her word was law; if she said move, they moved.  
  
After a few moments Miyako gathered up everyone into the far corner of the hold. She had to shout to be heard over the engine. "Okay guys, we're almost there. Anyone have any questions?"  
  
Kevin raised his hand, bellowing, "Can we go swimming first?" That got everyone chuckling and took the edge off of the nervous energy in the room.  
  
"No, we can't go swimming," Miyako shouted back. "Anyone else?"  
  
The room was silent. Miyako had rather thoroughly briefed everyone back at their improvised base and they had gotten all of their questions answered there anyway, but she did it to take the edge off. That was pretty much the only reason that Kevin was on the team -- otherwise she'd be looking for a new member. He wasn't the most focused person. She glanced over at the black-haired Yomca and kept her gaze moving; despite his competence he had a tendency to take his frustration out on whatever was convenient and he stayed away from people quite a bit because of that. She saw the red-haired Aya and locked eyes briefly. Aya had been one of the people carrying a stun baton before she almost went too far with it, giving an Odaiba employee a permenent twitch and a matching scar on the guy's left leg. Miyako hated the Odaiba Group almost as much as Aya, but she refused to give into that kind of impulse. She and Aya had had a long and barely civilized argument about her role reduction some time ago, and Miyako had driven her point home. Aya didn't meet her eyes.  
  
It was her crew, flawed as it was, and she was proud of it. "Bingo!" she yelled out. "Let's go!"  
  
****  
  
The screen was split wth power and glory, and when the rent in reality reached its apex, it spat out the fluid, muscular figure of Ken Ichijouji. Upon entering the Real World, he did what those who had come before him had always done:  
  
He slammed head-first into the floor.  
  
"Ow!" he muttered involuntarily, rubbing his scalp. "Thought I fixed that."  
  
Having said that he took stock of himself. His clothing had changed somewhat; he now had a more obvious division between the top and bottom of his usual outfit rather than it looking like a one-piece jumpsuit, and as he expected his gauntlets were gone. He quickly felt in the back pocket of his pants and, with a grunt of satisfaction, pulled out the disc from his gauntlets. He then grabbed for his Digivice and pulled it out; it showed the expected static rather than a Gate opening when he held it to the screen.  
  
He had a vague recollection of rushing water, of swirling lights and of a steady pull forwards as he went through the gate. He also felt the vibrating, grinding feeling that the Seals produced, their disrupting feeling threatening to consume everything even with the devices on 20% power. He shook himself slightly and stood all the way up, almost hitting his head on the low ceiling of the place he was at. Then he realized something, something that was enough to have him forget himself, stand all the way up, and come crashing down again:  
  
He made it! He was in the Real World now! It was enough for him to glaze out and remember some things, like the cars in the city and the lights at night, and bubbles blowing out of an apartment building. Things like walking on the street carefree; things like being open and honest all the time. Things that, as the Regent, he couldn't do very much.  
  
Gathering his wits eventually, he took out his digivice to check the time... only to find that it still displayed static. The things you take for granted, he thought to himself, and then remember the little black object in the back of his neck. The Dark Spore at its core was nothing more than a collector of energy, and when he was in the Digital World it was all well and good because of the balance of free-floating energy; but here in the Real World it would have to have to draw on him for power. That meant that when its reserves were dry it would automatically set itself to stimulate the production of negative energy.  
  
He had been in the grasp of the Spore that way before, and it was not an experience to be repeated.  
  
He reached into it with his mind, probing the device. Its creator had fashioned it from an actual Digimon and as such it had intelligence and will; it could recognise him and he had befriended the little guy after a long while. It woke up -- most of the time it was asleep -- and reacted. 'Yes, Regent?'  
  
'I need for you to stop your passive work, Spore. I can't feed you well here,' he sent back. The Spore consumed a bit of power to live, but if it wasn't doing passive work -- searching for other sources of food, looking for any threats to its host, offering some energy for enhanced focusing -- it could live for months on what it had stored away.  
  
'Oh,' it sent back. 'I'm gonna be really bored for a while, aren't I?'  
  
'Sorry, little guy,' Ken mentally said. 'I don't have much choice.'  
  
It didn't respond, but Ken felt it go quiet. At the same time, he realized that he was having trouble merely standing; it seemed to be harder somehow. He sat down abruptly and glanced around confused, suddenly scatterbrained. Even his vision was fuzzy. It was about then that he realized just how much he had relied on the Spore. No wonder the thing liked him: he kept it busy and must have stuffed it good. He took a moment to gather his wits, then immediately gave a hard look at his surroundings.  
  
He saw that he was in a basement somewhere, one that was undergoing serious renovation; it had torn-down walls branching off of the central area, where he was. Unsurprisingly, it was quite cool down there. It had a bed, and couch, and various domestic things: it also, in one corner, had the computer that he came flying out of. A small window shone no light; Ken guessed that it must have been almost two AM where he was, due to how dark it was. There wasn't even a moon out. Ken saw nobody home and decided to take a chance: he went to the computer.  
  
It was a Microsoft-run computer and wasn't anything special. He spent some time just using a mouse and keyboard, getting used to them again. He saw games and word processing programs and even some evidence that the computer's owner was male -- he carefully skipped around that, even though it took much more focus than he had expected to get around even the filenames. He didn't dare actully look. The computer was entirely what he expected except for an unusual application that he had never seen before. Its icon was a cartoonish resemblence of the Batman symbol and the title under it read "VandeNet". He chuckled a bit at that -- the Batman show was possibly the only dumb comedy he really enjoyed while living in the Real World before -- and double-clicked on it. It loaded and acted like the Internet browsers that he remembered, but something was different. It was wrong, somehow.  
  
He felt wrong. That was the only way he knew to describe it.  
  
What kind of wrong? he asked himself. Analysis of himself usually came right to him, but today it seemed to be dragging. Almost as if he couldn't think well. Then he remembered: the Spore was off. That was taking some getting used to. This kind of wrong was coming from deep down. It was touching off a memory --  
  
-- of running towards the battle, Digivice flaring --  
  
-- of denying that it could happen: impossible, I can't be outwit by a simpering Chosen! --  
  
-- of throwing away his rules and betting it all --  
  
-- the resulting surge of power, far off but coming closer --  
  
-- it felt like this.  
  
He recognised it for what it was; dark power. Ken wasn't sure where it came from but it had arrived right when the "VandeNet" thing had begun running. Disgusted, Ken turned it off with a swat on the mouse button. He ended up almost smashing the mouse entirely: he heard something crack when he hit the thing. He stared down at his hands fearfully. He hadn't meant to do that. It had just happened.  
  
On impulse, he awakened the Dark Spore. 'Hey.'  
  
It came fully awake right away -- one of its better qualities. 'Regent? Oh! Food!' With that, it proceeded to gorge itself on what it was that it ate -- excess dark energy. Almost immediately Ken felt better and whole again. 'I thought we weren't in the Digital World anymore,' the critter said. Ken caught on to that very quickly.  
  
'We're not,' Ken sent back grimly. 'The Real World seems to have a source of darkness, too'  
  
The little guy guy didn't seem to have the words to describe his joy, only digging into the excess dark energy that Ken was holding onto. When he had had the Spore looked at, they realized that it was developed to eat the excess darkness first, and that it made allowances for anyone to have some of their own. If it was running low on fuel, however, all of its restrictions were taken off and it would simply go for whatever it could eat. For his part, Ken shrugged mentally and stood up.  
  
It was about then that he heard the voices. Two of them, definitely male, and definitely coming towards where he was. Rather than stay and try to explain his presence, Ken stood up abruptly and glanced around wildly, looking for a way out. He found one away and back out a door, while the voices were above him. Ken ran to the door, threw it open, and ran outside into the night and closed the door behind him. He then made tracks away from the house.  
  
He got about thirty feet before he looked around himself, finding himself in a residential neighborhood of some sort. It was pitch black outside and not too warm; he also noticed that the street lamps weren't doing much to make things easier. They were either dim or completely out. The houses weren't lit too well either and he didn't see any power lines running to houses. In effect, it looked nothing like what he expected; it was a large group of isolated, dark houses.  
  
He started trudging towards a large, bright conglomeration of lights some distance away. While he walked, he thought things over. He didn't have any assistance save for the disc that contained bank codes, he didn't know where he was, and he didn't have any idea what to do next. That wasn't a problem for him, though; he'd been in worse predicaments. The Internet was his goal here, but it seemed that it was being abused by some kind of dark power. For what purpose, Ken could only guess; but the fact that somebody was taking over the Internet or changing what it was set his blood boiling. He moved a mite faster towards the lights, anticipating some kind of information, but not hoping too hard: it was, after all, far too dark to be anything but the late, late hours of the night.  
  
He arrived at the area some fifteen minutes later, only to discover that this particular store was marked "OPEN 24 HOURS" and that there was quite a group of people inside, judging by the lot full of cars. Thrusting his hands inside his pockets, he walked inside the store. The store was actually a vast business big enough to have a hair cuttery, an ATM, and even its own pizza place. It was certainly brightly lit for being so late at night; the area was full of people going about their business. They looked tired, but it was past midnight, so that was to be expected. He moved inside the store, looking around, feeling intimidated by how many people there were, but keeping his movement steady. He kept moving --  
  
Abruptly, the Spore woke up. 'Regent, something's draining my energy away!'  
  
This took Ken quite by surprise. 'What?!' He struggled briefly not to verbalize what he was trying to say to the Spore. 'How?'  
  
'I don't know!' it wailed back. 'Something here is doing it! It's getting you, too -- can't you feel it?'  
  
Ken shook his head, already on his way out the door. 'No. Tell me when it stops.'  
  
They had reached the end of the registers and were ten steps from the door when the Spore responded. 'Much better,' it chirped. 'Good thing I ate so much earlier, huh?'  
  
Ken nodded with a grim smirk on his face. 'Good thing.' He glanced around a bit, to take another look at the other humans. They looked tired, all right. Much too tired to be shopping. A theory began to bounce its way into his head and he only needed... there! An employee walked over to him; an older lady.  
  
"Can I help you, son?" she asked in English. Her voice was also tired, but it had an emptiness that a more traditional tired lacked. Well, Ken thought distractedly, that's one mystery solved. He figured by the accent that he was somewhere in the northeastern United States.  
  
"I only need the time, ma'am," he said politely and also in English. The woman glanced down at her watch.  
  
"It's a few moments past seven, son," she said.  
  
That hit him like a ton of bricks; stumbling, he found himself backpedaling slightly. "Are you alright?" she asked, less tired this time. "You're mighty pale, son."  
  
He shook himself, tried to rally. "I'm okay, ma'am. I just thought it was later at night."  
  
She looked at him. "Speak English, son." His eyebrows twitched; he hadn't even realized that he had switched to Japanese. Without another word he walked over to the pizza place and sat down hard in a booth. His thoughts were frozen, his reactions numb; all he could make out was --  
  
What is going on here?!  
  
****  
  
"What do you mean, they got by the defenses?"  
  
An unfortunate soldier / employee of the Odaiba Group was standing before the President and all three of his famous Assistants; this particular soldier had been chosen by his commander to deliver the news to the President. This task was not usually a difficult thing; but when the Assistants joined the President a debriefing usually turned into more of an interrogation. He cringed ever so slightly at the Assistant's question and answered in a shaky tone, "The resistance managed to make it through the defensive perimeter and strike into Factory #2, destroying it and its stockpile of ED reactors. They then withdrew from the area, masking their presence with the morning fog, sir."  
  
The President remained motionless. The Assistant to the left of the President, a tall, lanky man, cocked his head to the right. "What of the plant workers?"  
  
"They were already home for the night, sir. The night watchmen were found some distance away, stunned by stun rods or tasers."  
  
The Assistant to the President's right spoke up; she was a haughty woman with an angry tone and a carefully modulated amount of scorn in her voice. "What happened that they were able to move by the defenses?"  
  
"We're still working on that, sir, er, ma'am."  
  
The President motioned to his assistants. "That will be enough, Private. The watchmen are at fault. You were and are merely doing your job. Dismissed." He waved off the soldier, who saluted and strode swiftly out of the room.  
  
The final Assistant waited until the soldier had left before turning to the President and snorting. "So much for your game tonight. Do you doubt my analysis now?"  
  
The female Assistant bit out, "Watch your tone!", but was waved down by the President. The President chuckled a bit, leaning back in his oversize chair.  
  
"No, I don't suppose I do. It is quite clear that the watchmen system that we have set up now is quite inadequate. They are to be moved to a more profitable location while we conduct an extensive security sweep of the area." He motioned to the woman. "You are to take care of that." She nodded and, turning, stormed out of the area.  
  
"She'll be furious for some time for that," the male Assistant noted. "She despises being proven wrong."  
  
The President shook his head. "I think I have something that can make up for that." He glanced over at the third Assistant, still in the shadow. "Give me what you have on the digital situation." She came out from darkness and jumped on the table, looking the President in the eye.  
  
"This is what we have," she began. "The Gate definitely sent a single person through, but that person didn't remain at the gate. I can safely say that the Emperor didn't send through a Digimon because we would have found it; therefore, I believe that it is some kind of automaton or robot, sent through to collect data for an as yet unknown reason. The Seals, interestingly enough, have lowered in power to about 35% of their normal level. If we want to punch through to the Digital World now is the time."  
  
"Indeed," the President replied thoughtfully. "Get Lab 32 on this right away -- while I sincerely doubt that they can make it through the Seals even at that reduced powerlevel, they have produced the occasional miracle. Tell them to be extremely careful; the Seals will kill them if they attempt to break through prematurely." The Assistant saluted, jumped off the table, and ran off around the room to the elevator on the other side.  
  
The final Assistant stood at silent attention, awaiting orders. The President didn't make a sound as the elevator descended. Silence fell on the two for a moment.  
  
The elevator ascended and its new passenger walked out calmly into the main area. "You called?"  
  
"You told me," the President began, steepling his fingers,"that the Resistance was too busy to attack a complex directly."  
  
"I did," the person said.  
  
"Why, therefore, is it that the complex where my employees were finished making the next generation of reactors has been reduced to ashes?"  
  
"I couldn't discourage our leader," the person responded. "She holds you and yours responsible for the changes in our world."  
  
The President straightened, looking the person right in the eye. "I suggest that you find a better way to assist me if you desire the end of this. My patience with the resistence grows thin; I want to see them out of action before I will cut back on reactor producion and energy broadcasting."  
  
"I can't do everything, but this time I'll break the boat before I'll let them go off again. We've already lost too many people to this conflict; we can't lose more. I can't break her spirit directly so I'll simply slow it down as best as I can." The person seemed self-satisfied.  
  
The President motioned towards the door. "I trust you, but I need to see results in exchange for that trust." Getting the message, the person turned and walked back to the elevator. The President turned to the slightly bewildered assistant and said, "Comments?"  
  
"It's about the last thing that I expected, sir," the person replied truthfully. "I don't doubt your ability, but I had envisioned the resistance as being more tightly knit than that person has made it out to be."  
  
The President sighed. "That person," he said, "is rather fully within our power."  
  
"Like Squad A, sir?"  
  
"Precisely."  
  
"Orders?"  
  
"Follow him to the base, and take Squad A and whatever backup you believe you require with you. Gut them like fish and bring any Chosen to me alive. Ideally, you'll get two of them. It remains to be seen whether the rest of them are there, but if they are we can go ahead with implementation that much faster."  
  
The Assistant saluted. "Yes, sir!" he all but shouted, and left the room in a flourish.  
  
All alone now, the President leaned back in the chair and pressed a button, and a projector activated itself. It showed for him the eight Crests of the Chosen and the progress he had made on each one. He examined each one in turn, then rotated the display away from himself, thinking all the while. He deactivated the projector and got up, walking over to the window. From here he could see the person he had talked to earlier walk right out the front door of his Tower.  
  
The President shook his head. Such a waste... 


	4. Other Voices, Part I

PAUSE FOR BOURGEOIS LEGALITIES "Digimon" and all characters and situations contained within are copyrighted trademarks of Bandai, Saban Entertainment and Upper Deck. Permission is hereby granted by the author to reproduce this document unless you try to make money off of it; if so, please contact me first at Calcite_McWhalen@hotmail.com. I may be a grown-up cartoon fan but I do know my way around Title 17.  
  
****  
  
Other Voices  
  
****  
  
"So, how did it go?"  
  
Hikari was inside the resistance's base, a complex of subway tunnels that were part of some expansion that was begun but never finished; the contractors had the money to hollow and support a few hundred yards of tunnel and they wanted to earn their pay. The result was roughly three miles of well-built but abandoned tunnel which conveniently enough were placed right next to the bay at Odaiba. One of the lower tunnels happened to be a drainage tunnel, emptying straight into the nearby bay. Miyako had discovered the tunnels some time back and had decided to utilize them in a properly rebellious fashion. Gathering up what friends and followers she could she took to the tunnels, sealing the top entrances up once the harbor in the sunken tunnel had been completed.  
  
"It was wierd... I expected it to be really intense, and it was in a way because of how tight Miyako runs things, but at the same time nothing happened at all. Nothing at all." Hikari had, over time gotten used to his presence and didn't mind a little free talking here and there.  
  
Hikari at the time was inside what passed for the quarters for the place. It was the highest section of tunnels available and had many grates and such to allow for sunlight to stream inside to the beleagured inhabitants of the resistance. When Iori had built the framework for the beds and what little dressers that they had -- mostly brought from home -- he had considered how the sun would have contributed to how people were able to sleep and relax and build accordingly. What couches and relaxing pieces of furniture they had were all in the middle; the rest of the room was taken up by bunks built in a rough circle around the grates and their gift of sunlight. Iori had tapped a water main in the far corner of the room; the pipe ran to the residential areas above but was always just a little weaker than normal. He used this water for everything that they needed; piping for the kitchens and bathrooms. Hikari was sitting on one of the beds, a little ways from the natural light, upon her mattress of old. She wasn't in her field dress anymore; rather, she was in her sleep uniform: tank top and shorts. Her hair, longer now that she had aged, bunched against her neck but not beyond. She was still a fan of short hair but with a feminine length to it.  
  
"Aren't you glad that nothing happened?"  
  
Hikari wasn't alone. In fact, she happened to be glancing down at the one constant in a world gone mad: her friend Takeru Takaishi, who had been sitting on the ground next to her bunk. She had just gotten back and, after going through an hour-long interrogation of a debriefing session, had been released into the real world again. Takeru was also in his sleep uniform -- an old jersey and his basketball shorts. His hat had been abandoned in the topside world and Hikari was still getting used to him without it. His hair had grown out somewhat and he had the beginnings of a beard. For his part he had his eyes closed, focusing on some thing beyond her ability to hear but still very much there for her.  
  
"I wish I could have done something," she said quietly. He didn't react.  
  
"What was your job again?" he asked after a while.  
  
"I was supposed to watch out in case something happened."  
  
"So you did something," Takeru reasoned.  
  
"That's not fair," she pouted. After fifteen minutes of it, his pouting resistance had finally maxed out and he opened his eyes, moving slightly to glance up at her irritably.  
  
"Aw," she said playfully, "I was just warming up."  
  
"Exactly," he straight-faced. He earned a whack over his head for that. "Ow!" He rubbed the back of his head where the hat used to be.  
  
"What'd you do while I wasn't here?" she asked.  
  
"Oh, this and that. A lot of being bored. It was really quiet."  
  
"Did you do any writing?"  
  
"Yeah. Another three pages of copy added. We'll have to see if this one gets any response." Takeru had never really liked to write as a kid, but after he hurt his leg in his freshman year of high school he had taken to it to have something to do. He still wasn't a huge fan of the idea but it had grown on him as a way to keep involved. He had compiled a list of things that the Odaiba Group produced, extracted a purpose for these things, and posted an essay about it online. For his work he was expelled and forced underground. It wasn't an official exile; however, it was better than staying and be watched all hours of the day by his own government for writing 'subversive material'.  
  
"I wish there was some way we could tell if there is people looking at my stuff," he said distantly. This was an area they had gone over before.  
  
"I'm sure somebody's reading," she responded. "You're fighting the good fight, right? Pen rather than sword, right?" He nodded half- heartedly. "Well then, you're doing what you can. Keep on hoping, Takeru. Somebody will read your stuff and that one person will make all the difference in the world."  
  
He was quiet for a while after that. They both were. Eventually Takeru asked, "When do you guys go back out again?"  
  
"Sometime next week," she said softly. "I don't really know... Miyako said something about making preperations for next time."  
  
"Huh?" he asked, looking up again. "I thought that you guys would just go out and do it."  
  
"She's not sure," Hikari said in a hesitant tone, and Takeru knew that Hikari wouldn't be pushed any further. After being her best friend for most of his life he had seen where her walls were and how they defined her comfort zone. He knew better than to push those walls. Once, long ago, he had pushed those walls too far in a fit and didn't see her for the better part of a month. He struggled to his feet on his bad leg; it had been hurt back in high school and twinged every time he tried to move it.  
  
"Hey, how about some food?" he asked. It was lame and stupid and something other than the discussion they had been having and Hikari jumped at it.  
  
"Food sounds good," she said and Takeru turned, walking out towards the mouth of the subway, to where most of the other people were. The residential area took a slant downwards to the main area where the gear and cooking stuff was kept. Neither Takeru or Hikari had much kitchen talent and they were not alone in this; the base only had five or six people who could actually cook and one or two of those people were always on. They cooked for almost forty people so they had quite the task if only one person was awake. Fortunately at the moment no less than four of them were on, and that was a good thing because half the base was eating. Iori could be seen way across the area, at a far table.  
  
Takeru glanced down at Hikari. "Looks like we're late for the party."  
  
She shook her head. "Where's Miyako?" Takeru made a quick glance around and saw no traces of the lavender-haired girl. "She said that she'd be down," Hikari continued. Miyako stayed in the normal sleep area like everyone else, but often went up to a specific part of the subway to think after a mission.  
  
"Maybe something came up," he suggested.  
  
It was about then -- the two of them in line, making a little conversation -- that the whole thing went straight to hell.  
  
The piece of tunnel above the eating area -- a largish block of sturdy-looking concrete -- exploded. There was no setup or warning. It simply came apart.  
  
Hikari screamed involuntarily and dove away from the debris storm, bringing the slower Takeru with her. They scrambled down under a nearby table. All sorts of dust had been kicked up and the ceiling kept rumbling. Coughing, she could hear everyone else yelling, Iori's startled yelp above it all, she could feel something warm on her left hand... Warm? She glanced down quickly where her hand was and saw a dark reddish something. She quickly realized that it wasn't her blood and almost screamed again when she saw Takeru; he had a gash above his left ear, one that bled rather freely. He was out cold. Her training quickly took over. Before she realized what she was doing she had torn her shirt and tied a bandage of sorts to the wound, keeping steady pressure on it. "Don't die on me, Takeru," she whispered slightly and took stock of herself. She was scratched and bruised in places but had all of her limbs working.  
  
Dimly she became aware of the lack of noise. The ceiling had stopped rumbling and people had stopped screaming. Cautiously she peeked out from under the table to see the dining area in ruins. Dust had enveloped everything, making it all but impossible to see. People were standing out in the open, glancing around the area. People she didn't recognise. People with guns and radios and uniforms of the Odaiba Group --  
  
A hand reached out, lifted her above the table, with her squealing in surprise the whole way. "Found one!" a brutal voice cried out.  
  
"Bring her over here and check the area again. They like to hide together," another voice answered, this one full of scorn. It was female and vaguely familiar. Hikari found herself tossed on the ground nearby, almost hitting one particularly sharp piece of rock on the way down. She looked at her attacker with the intention of doing something... only to find a gun in her face. The person behind it held it with the loving touch that comes from long experience with it.  
  
"Nothing cute, girl, or we'll have one less rebel in the world today." He motioned with his gun. "Walk on over there to the others and keep quiet. Wouldn't want to hurt anyone, now." She didn't spare him another glance, just walked on over and sat down with the others. They were all much like she was -- dusty, bruised, resentful. Iori in particular was shaking with a furious expression on his face, an ice pack held to his head.  
  
"Are you okay, Iori?" she asked, concerned, but her gaze was still over at the mound of rubble where Takeru was half-hidden. She hadn't been able to stuff him in there at all, but some things shifted around when she had been pulled out, and it didn't look like the soldier had given the area more than a cursory look.  
  
"No, Hikari, I'm not okay," he said back angrily. "How did they know where we were?"  
  
That was something that Hikari hadn't considered yet. "I don't know. Is everyone alright?" "No," he growled. "We've all been captured by that snake of a President." He glanced at the soldiers. "He sent like ten soldiers -- if that. We're being mocked and I hate it!"  
  
Hikari hazarded a last glance at where Takeru had fell. At least, where she thought that he was; the dust was making it all but impossible to see. There didn't seem to be any soldiers over there and her thoughts sent a final farewell to him before she turned --  
  
And nearly screamed again.  
  
For she had seen across the area, where the dust had begun to settle, standing there with some kind of small device in her hand a person Hikari had not seen in three years. This person was dressed in the uniform of the Odaiba Group (one that was marked with a silver A), had short red hair, and possessed a haughty look upon her face. She moved carefully and quickly around, shoving the device against each person she encountered, moving on when it beeped. The well-endowed woman kept moving around and efficiently made her way over to where Hikari and Iori were. Hikari, who hadn't recovered from her shock, didn't move a muscle when the woman thrust the device against her arm. It beeped differently and the woman drew back in surprise, staring down at Hikari with brown eyes as if evaluating her.  
  
Hikari hadn't moved because standing above her, now quietly asking for assistance with her little device, was Sora Takenouchi.  
  
****  
  
"Are you serious?" The Assistant didn't quite know what to make of that. He listened to his phone for a while, then said, "Unbelievable. Bring the two of them up here and get them restrained first!" He slammed the phone into the cradle that held it in the field office he had set up, then motioned a man over. This person had buzzed blonde hair and icy blue eyes, and came right on over. As much as the Assistant hated to deal with anyone as cold as Yamato Ishida he recognised that nobody was more competent. He didn't head up Squad A for nothing. Constructed entirely from people native to Odaiba and headed up by former associates of the President, there was no other unit that operated with the skill and competence of Squad 1 in all of the Odaiba Group.  
  
"I need you to run a message across to Mr. President." That'll show him, the Assistant thought irrationally, and was displeased when Ishida didn't even twitch. He simply turned and walked towards the vehicles that Squad 1 commanded.  
  
****  
  
Ishida walked away from the desk of the President, entered the elevator, and pressed the down button. Obligingly the doors shut and the car descended. It was about then that the President allowed what he had been feeling since the report reached him, at 11:42 PM, to show: he jumped up and hollered at the top of his lungs.  
  
"YES!"  
  
Settling down his body quickly, Mr. President still found his mind to be jittery with momentum and bits of euphoria. This was completely unexpected. He hadn't counted on something like this to happen at all; he knew that at least one Chosen was at the base but he never expected to find several of them! He had expected to be satisfied and relaxed; instead he was on the verge of being far more happy than anytime in his life.  
  
Smiling still, he punched in the orders and leaned back. His collection was almost complete now...  
  
****  
  
Ken Ichijouji runs the spectrum of himself.  
  
Denial comes first, and its stark whiteness brings it into focus quickly. It is quickly and firmly at his side with the avid and welcome declaration of No! it didn't happen! don't believe it! But Ken overcomes this quickly. His Spore had been screaming as its lifeblood was drained away. Ken could feel the effect of the darkness on him, causing him to become irrational and preternaturally strong. No, Denial offered no solace to Ken; it merely attempted to soften the blow and failed miserably.  
  
The shock came next. A blinding yellow, it slapped him upside the head with the simple declaration of war being declared by the forces of darkness on his old home, a place he had thought impervious to harm. Shock passes quickly, though, driven off by the ensuing tide of first anger and then rage. They were orange and red respectively and he immersed himself in them. Nobody had the right to dare attack the world of his birth! Righteous indignance radiated from his being and he clenched his hands into fists, wishing to destroy the darkness at its source.  
  
That passed too; however, it was replaced by a feeling of guilt. Guilt was the dark blue of the ocean and Ken found himself drowning in it. Was he to blame? Did any of the evils that he had defeated during his stay as Regent escape to this world? He slouched somewhat, overcome by it, then rallied. He was not responsible for the actions of darkness; he merely would fight it where it emerged. The ocean rippled, changed colors, and the purple tinge of despair surrounded him. He couldn't fight this. He didn't even know what it was, let alone where it came from or how to confront it. Feeling drained, Ken thumped his still-clenched fists into the table in front of him. Then the blackness of no feeling came upon him and mercifully allowed the feelings to drain. Now he could think rationally.  
  
Abruptly, Ken looked up, realizing that the table in front of him was ever-so-wet. He ran a sleeve over his eyes and forced himself to focus again, looking around. He was still in the Wal-Mart or whatever it was, and people were staring at him, specificially the pizza place employees. He was irked by the deadness in their stares. Only a few people showed any animation when looking at him; most others simply gave him a glance and kept on at their business.  
  
The others presented a small problem as Ken wasn't very good at dealing with people. It wasn't that he disliked them, or thought of them as a burden. He simply hadn't had much contact with them over the course of his seventeen years. It was fortunate that he had to deal with so many kinds of Digimon where he came from because he would have been at a loss to deal with the humans in a normal environment.  
  
This environment was hardly normal, though.  
  
Ken eventually recovered his wits enough to walk over to the ATM in the corner, pulling out his little disc with his left hand as he went. He examined the machine carefully, then pressed several keys. He inserted the 'disc' into the slot -- it fit perfectly -- and he went about pushing buttons. In the bad old days he had managed to make quite a bit of money, and store it away into accounts; and if the Internet being taken down hadn't interfered with anything...  
  
Perfect. All of his accounts were present and accounted for. The sum of over a million dollars was at Ken's fingerprints. It wasn't intoxicating for Ken; rather, it was something to grab onto as a ground in this crazy storm. Taking his disc when it was spat out by the machine, he walked over to the counter of the pizza place and glanced at all of the employees. They were certainly eyeing him as they went throughout their work and none of them seemed to have any life left in them...  
  
Abruptly, his gaze was blocked by a person that crossed his line of sight directly in front of him, carrying some kind of bag. The person -- male, black, relaxed, and sporting the cap that only the manager of the place had on -- turned to him and said, "Sorry, bro, just in a hurry, ya?" With that he turned and kept moving into the back of the restaurant yelling for the next deliveries. Ken had only gotten a quick look into his eyes but they were lively and energetic.  
  
The front girl walked over to him with a vacant expression on her face, chewing something. Ken had the distinct feeling that that was as enthusiastic as "Amy", according to her name tag, was ever going to be. "Whaddyawant?" she slurred tiredly at him.  
  
"Just give me a slice of that," he said, pointing to some kind of pizza on the other side. He was pretty sure that it wouldn't match the stuff that Digitamamon could make but was willing to give it a shot, just to think about something else. When she told him the price he swiped his disc where it was indicated and she walked away. He waited without thinking much until she brought it over, took it without thanks, and walked to a booth.  
  
The pizza was incredible. Ken had forgotton a key factor about Digitamamon's food; it was configured for all sorts of different races, while human food had been made for humans only. Digitamamon's clientele ranged from insectile to demonic and they all had a different idea about what tasted good and what didn't so this was a welcome change. As he ate, he thought over his situation and came to a few conclusions: he decided that he needed to test this whole thing more. Was it just at this retailer or was this more widespread? Ken chose to ignore the evidence of how dark it was at seven-thirty. He'd handle that later, when he was more rational.  
  
For now, he needed to focus on problems that he could handle; that meant that he needed to find a place to stay so that he could perform some extended tests on what was going on. That meant that he needed to find the ultimate control place, somewhere where he couldn't be drained or put upon by darkness or anything else. That meant a room in somebody's house, for starters. He couldn't trust a hotel to not have draining devices and he realized in all of this thinking that he had already discarded his theory of the draining devices being just this retailer. That made no sense; if somebody could drain humans here, they could drain them pretty much anywhere.  
  
Pizza and brainstorming finished, Ken stood up and walked over to the counter again. "Hey!" he called. The black guy from earlier emerged from the back, sans bags, and walked over to him.  
  
"Yeah, what's up, man?" He had a relaxed, open way of talking and wore no nametag.  
  
Ken decided to take a very small risk. "I'm Ken Ichijouji. What's your name?"  
  
"Ken, uh? My name's Chardsy and I work here. You need something?" Ken was inwardly relieved. Chardsy had never heard of him before.  
  
"Actually, I need something rather unusual." The guy glanced at him quizzically.  
  
"We got all kinds of pizza, man. We make anything."  
  
"Not that stuff," Ken assured him. "I'm looking for a place to stay that's not official."  
  
Chardsy took a step back, sizing up Ken. When he didn't find anything threatening, he leaned forward and asked, "Why?" This was not a question that Ken was prepared for but he did the best he could on short notice.  
  
"I'm something of a nomad scientist. Psychology major, out of Harvard. I move around studying humans in different situations and try to predict behavior patterns for my doctorate. I need places to sleep that are completely unexpected and I pay people well for that." Ken was rather proud of that little doozy.  
  
"Pay well, eh?" he said thoughtfully. He placed his hands on the counter, steepled them. "How much is well?"  
  
"One thousand dollars a week."  
  
Chardsy's eyes all but bugged out of his head and his mouth dropped open. "A thousand fucking dollars? Holy shit, man." He turned around, about to announce it gleefully, but stopped. He turned back to Ken, an almost crazed light in his eyes, hands out on the counter. "Okay. I can make room but I need the thousand dollars in advance." He was hyperventilating and full of energy again and Ken found it difficult not to smile at the guy's honest thrill.  
  
Ken pointed to the ATM in the corner. "Come with me over to that once your shift gets out." Chardsy's eyes didn't bug out this time, but his mouth did open. He walked over to the corner, tapped buttons on a computer there, then walked over to Ken again.  
  
Chardsy took off his cap. "I'm off," he announced, and tossed the hat on the counter. "I ain't gonna be needing that for a long time. Don't need to work or nothing!" he yelled and bounced right over to the ATM. "Where's the money?" he asked breathlessly. Ken wordlessly handed over a neat stack of $20 bills, and Chardsy took a moment to simply look at it. Ken saw that light in his eyes again; the light of security and freedom that came with something like this. He stuffed the bills into one pocket. Then Chardsy looked Ken in the eye and stuck out his hand.  
  
Ken shook it firmly. "Where to?" he asked.  
  
"Whoa," Chardsy said. "Where's your stuff?"  
  
"I don't have anything with me other than my equipment," Ken said, pullling at his neck where the shirt chafed on it. "This fabric keeps itself clean."  
  
"Alright. That way," Chardsy said, and started walking out of the building. Ken would have been right behind him, except that the outdoors had actually gotten darker -- Ken found it impossible to see. Chardsy also stopped.  
  
"It's really dark," Ken muttered quietly.  
  
"Give yourself a minute, man," Chardsy said back quietly. "You'll adjust." Ken's eyes eventually came back into focus; he could see the people again, streaming inside still. Chardsy had already set out. Ken quickly caught up, finding himself confused by his new companion's antics. It turned out that Chardsy drove a very small car -- no larger than a small Monochromon -- and stuffing both of them into it was interesting, to say the least. Chardsy lowered his window and Ken did the same, then he started the car and the radio. It was playing something light and fluffy and obviously pop.  
  
This was not unfamiliar to Ken. The Digital World had its share of music bands and some of them specialized in the kind of mindless fluff that he was listening to now. Most of the time they performed in the Stadium, a performing center in the Capitol, but sometimes they'd invite Ken to listen to a new release or jam session. Most of the time Ken, as the Regent, had to turn them down in the interest of running the worldwide nation. Occasionally he'd get the chance to go.  
  
Ken didn't care for the music, but Chardsy seemed to be having quite a good time slapping the wheel with the beat. He had managed to keep the grin on his face, but whatever it was that was in the air of this place got to him. Presently the music came to a halt and the DJ came on saying, "And now, for the week's #1 hit also by Gardening Sincerity, here's --"  
  
Chardsy reached over and gave the knob a twist, turning it off. Ken glanced over. "Why?" he asked.  
  
"Don't worry about it," Chardsy drawled back, but with a quiet pensiveness to his voice. "Nothing for a college man like you to care about."  
  
Ken waited, looking at his host quietly. Chardsy just stared forward, looking at the road.  
  
Chardsy eventually gave in. "That group, Gardening Sincerity, they're a newer group. They started really good, ya? I loved their early stuff. But they got worse real fast, ever since the Odaiba Group started backing them with money and tech. Now they can barely sing a note that's good because they don't care anymore. It's like they sold out, ya?" Chardsy looked frustrated. "Why'd they have to go and get backing? They didn' t need that shit."  
  
"Odaiba Group?" Ken wondered aloud.  
  
Chardsy nodded, lip twisting up. "I didn't think that that bunch of stuffed shirts would bother with a band either, but they get to use the band for marketing crap, so there you go. Another group of people without any energy." A passing car whizzed by them.  
  
"This whole place is like that," Ken mused to himself. He didn't say it quietly enough to have Chardsy miss it, though.  
  
Chardsy nodded. "I thought so."  
  
Ken looked up. "Huh?"  
  
Chardsy pursed his lips, then glanced over at Ken. The car stopped at a red light. "You ain't from around here."  
  
"Of course not," Ken said, surprised and a bit worried. "I'm from Harvard." Chardsy gave him a quick look, then returned his gaze to the road in front of him. His mouth twisted.  
  
"You don't know what it's like, being in a place run by Odaiba," Chardsy said bitterly. When Ken didn't react, Chardsy continued. "You people think that their new ED reactors are the greatest thing ever. Sure they're low cost and efficient and all that shit, but they do something to humans, man. Whatever's in them is screwing us up. We're getting damned tired all the time and I know we didn't get that way with electrical power, ya?"  
  
"You don't seem to be affected by that," Ken pointed out.  
  
"Yeah, that's because I run my place on a generator and use an old gas-powered car. Gas is getting hard to find, though. Gonna have to buy the Odaiba shit to stay alive." Chardsy shook his head. "Never thought it would come to that. Anyway, here we are," he said, and pulled the car into a driveway. Ken got out and looked up; it was an apartment building. "I'm all the way up," he said, and started climbing stairs. Ken did as well and they both arrived in a few moments.  
  
"How do you know that it's Odaiba technology that's doing this to you?" Ken asked. The name Odaiba sounded vaguely familiar, and he made a mental note to contact Stingmon whenever he could to get some info on it. Chardsy unlocked the apartment and they went in. It was by and large clean, except for all of the odd posters and cutouts up on the board. Most were marked "Gardening Sincerity". They all seemed to feature what Ken guessed to be some kind of lead singer: a twenty-something knockout of a redhead. He didn't quite know what to make of such a revealing outfit and found himself staring for one brief moment. Something about her was quietly familiar...  
  
"You alright, man?" Chardsy said, waving a hand in front of him, breaking up his thoughts. Ken shook his head hard to get the cobwebs out, feeling embarrassed.  
  
"Caught off guard by the poster," Ken said. "Anyway, you never answered the question." Chardsy collapsed onto some kind of couch thing and Ken followed suit onto a chair across the way. By the look of it Chardsy didn't entertain much.  
  
"I read that stuff. Somebody posted it online." Chardsy took to digging through a stack of documents. "It's off the old Internet -- I don't have the VandeNet. Sorry. Here we go," he said, and pulled out a stapled stack of papers. "It's a bit long. I'll be in the back, alright? Gotta work out."  
  
Ken took the proffered papers, no more than ten pages of text. "It's not that bad." With that, he looked at the title, and settled himself in for some long reading. This was exactly what he was looking for: "Odaiba Group Technology and Effects on Humanity", by the Angel of Hope.  
  
****  
  
The Lady Celeste pulled into a ruined harbor.  
  
Miyako had been out on a supply run; it had taken all day, with only Aya and Kevin for company. Iori had elected to stay behind and, besides, the Lady Celeste didn't take four people to run it, right? Never mind that Kevin couldn't sail for anything and that Aya was too busy thinking dark thoughts to help. Miyako might as well had made the trip by herself; and thinking those thoughts kept her movements automatic until she had gotten quite close to the harbor; enough to realize that nobody was signalling for their entrance.  
  
It became much more obvious what had happened when they actually got to the dock. There was nobody waiting there to help them get into the harbor; nobody there to assist the three of them getting off of the ship. "I don't like this," Aya muttered constantly while getting out the ropes and throwing them to Kevin while Miyako dropped anchor. "Something happened."  
  
"Aya," Miyako said sternly. "We don't know yet."  
  
Miyako was the first one inside, and the first one to see the base's central room. What had been a bustling center for eating and relaxing had become a field of ruin; the top of the base's roof must have been demolished, because there was a gaping hole where the ceiling used to be that let the starlight in. Miyako's flashlight cut across the place, showing nothing but rock and dust and quiet ruin.  
  
"Damn," Kevin whispered, moving across the area with a hesitent hand. Aya was simply glancing around, her flashlight playing into the ground nearby. Miyako reacted somewhat more strongly; she dropped to her knees, suddenly fighting off the urge to sob. Fighting that was a failing battle and she knew it. She'd figured out exactly what had happened but that didn't make things easier to swallow. She'd never thought that Odaiba and its little Mr. President could smash her group this easily!  
  
Then the rubble moved, and she forgot her sorrow.  
  
A bandaged head reared itself, outlined in Kevin's flashlight. Miyako jumped back up and raced over to the shadow, Aya close behind, to find the bloodied and dazed Takeru. He had been injured somehow and somebody had placed a bandage on his head; it hadn't been quite enough by itself and he looked very pale, the side of his head caked in dried blood "What happened?" Takeru kept saying as the three of him took him carefully to the Lady Celeste. He was the only one that was talking; even Kevin's wit seemed like it didn't work. "Where is Hikari and everyone else?"  
  
They placed him on a bed in the crew quarters. Kevin went out to get the rest of their equipment while Aya set them back out, away from the ruins. Still nobody said anything.  
  
Miyako took a quiet stock of the situation. They had refueled the boat on the way to the supply depot. Most of their advanced equipment was on the boat. She certainly was fine physically Really, the only thing that the President had taken from them was their people and their dreams, Miyako reflected darkly. She had decided to stay with Takeru, who seemed to have some kind of fever or delirium. Either way, he kept asking where everyone was. Miyako wasn't any medical expert, but from what she knew his head injury was either a concussion or something worse. He was probably lucky to be alive, she realized.  
  
"Where is everyone?" he asked again, more insistent this time, and Miyako saw as he turned and glanced into her eyes. His were all but dead, with but a little spark of life behind them.  
  
"I don't know," Miyako finally responded. "I don't know where everyone is." That seemed to placate him, and he collapsed into sleep. She examined the cloth on his head and, reaching out into a small bucket of water nearby, started cleanng the wound. It was an automatic thing and it took her away from the madness. The mind-twisting hopelessness. The rage.  
  
Her lip twisted as she continued to change the bandage but she kept her hands steady. The President had crossed the line! He'd gone too far now, and she had to do something back to him! Finishing with the cleaning, she tore her shirt slightly and redressed the wound. He didn't react much throughout all of that, simply rolling over a bit and wrinkling his brow. When she was done he turned over and fell asleep again. Her lip continued to twist as she looked down at him. They had never tried to kill an Odaiba employee before. Yes, Aya hurt one badly once, but never had any of them crossed that line.  
  
Leaving him there, she went to the bridge. Kevin and Aya were both there, quietly going about their business. The both looked expectantly at her when she got there.  
  
"We're going to Odaiba," she said. "We've got people to save and a score to settle."  
  
**** 


	5. Other Voices, Part II

PAUSE FOR BOURGEOIS LEGALITIES "Digimon" and all characters and situations contained within are copyrighted trademarks of Bandai, Saban Entertainment and Upper Deck. Permission is hereby granted by the author to reproduce this document unless you try to make money off of it; if so, please contact me first at Calcite_McWhalen@hotmail.com. I may be a grown-up cartoon fan but I do know my way around Title 17.  
  
****  
  
Other Voices 2  
  
****  
  
It was quite the cheerful day in Odaiba's Central District. The birds were singing, the sun was shining, and Mr. President was dressed down for the occasion. The jacket was already off and the sleeves were rolled up by the time the Assistant made it up the elevator shaft to the top floor. The legs were up on the desk. She padded in, amused despite herself at the antics of her Commander-in-Chief. "Morning, boss."  
  
"Ah, Assistant!" He glanced up from the technical readout he'd been poring over. "Come on over. I was just going over a few things, but they're of no importance." She padded over and jumped on a nearby chair, taking a moment to settle in before consulting the pad she was carrying.  
  
"Here are the morning reports," she said, glancing down the list. "Of eight hundred thirty employees, eight hundred twenty-three are here today; the others have allowable excuses. We're up and running now. All reactors in all places show greenline for the morning. VandeNet servers are also greenlining, except for number 230002, which had a malfunctioning powersupply. Incoming energy is up .013%; outgoing energy is down 1.452%. Current prices for our energy are at $0.24 / hour / watt. Our stock is up .45% in the morning trading and we're currently worth about $239.84 billion dollars." She finished her recitation, then glanced over at the President mock-seriously. "Now what exactly has allowed you to go around like that?"  
  
"Did you forget about the tour group?"  
  
The Assistant thought briefly, then shook her head. "I'm in the dark about most non-company things like that."  
  
"Okay." He pulled himself into a normal sitting position, grunting discontentedly as he did so. "You know how the Americans have been reluctant to take the ED-3 reactor prototypes seriously?" She nodded slowly. "Well, they decided that being six months behind the rest of the world wouldn't do and they're sending in the troops. At about ten o'clock today I'll be taking the American dignitaries through the complex."  
  
"Interesting. I take it I'll be up here?"  
  
"Yes. I need somebody I can trust to keep an eye on things."  
  
"Why exactly are the Americans coming? I thought that they were content with the ED-1s we sold them like four years ago."  
  
The president leaned back, a smirk coming up on his face. "Well, I won't tell if you don't tell, okay?" She nodded, confused. "They're sending a four-star general in with the group."  
  
"Military production." The Assistant shook her head at that. "What do the Americans need with even more toys?"  
  
"It's none of our business what they have in mind," the President scolded her mildly. "We do business with clients. That's all."  
  
"Moving right along," the Assistant continued, "I have an opening report from Koushiro in Lab 32."  
  
The president blinked. "Already? The boy doesn't sleep." He already knew that, of course; Koushiro Izumi hadn't done much sleeping since he signed on with the Odaiba Group four years ago. He was an intense, driven worker who was reputed to be impossible to work with for any length of time. The rate of transfers in and out of his department were impressive, as were the results that Lab 32 submitted. After all, the President reminded himself, Koushiro did design and build the first ED reactors. That could have made him quite the famous scientist on the lecture line. Koushiro always turned down offers to speak, however, which worked very well for the President.  
  
"That's Kou. His new process has been implemented. He said that of 32,000 packets that he sent across he got back about eight. He wanted me to remind you that his initial results are without any kind of experimenting; he was going to try and set up a terminal for testing the Seals' defenses but collapsed of exhaustion. He's currently on the 64th floor recovering." The President fought down a smile at the description; it was the usual way that Koushiro got any sleep.  
  
"I wasn't expecting him to get even that far last night. We didn't get him the assignment until, what, eleven at night?"  
  
"Something like that."  
  
"Make sure to tell him when he wakes up that I don't expect him to wave his hands and punch a hole in the Seals. Tell him to take all the time he needs to do the job right." The President got out of his chair and, regretfully, placed his sleeves back in the right place. Throwing his coat back on, he pressed a button located on the other side. It was the elevator call button and it came shooting up from below, arriving at the top floor as he made it over to it. He stopped at a mirror placed in front of the car and adjusted his hair carefully, shooting his cuffs and smoothing out imaginary wrinkles out of his jacket. His Assistant watched it all amusedly while clambering up onto his chair and pulling it forwards. When the President was satisfied with his appearance he turned back to his Assistant. "Keep things smooth," he said. "I'll be out of touch for most of the morning."  
  
"Sure thing, Chief," she said and he mounted the car, descending into the depths of his building. He stopped at the thirtieth floor, allowing a single passenger to board; a woman with a red dress and silver hair, sporting a pair of sunglasses. The car continued to descend once she boarded.  
  
The President's demeanor changed almost immediately. His eyes narrowed, his figure straightened almost imperceptibly. His mouth turned down. His skin seemed to get a little paler; his suit, darker. "How are our guests?" he asked the woman, another of his Assistants.  
  
She took a moment to respond. "As comfortable as can be expected. They shouldn't be coming around for another few hours."  
  
The President nodded. "Good. Make sure we have the stasis equipment on the twelth floor running before they manage to get into trouble. I don't doubt that they'll attempt to escape. Place Squad A on the job as soon as they report today."  
  
"They won't like the guard duty," the Assistant observed carefully. He shrugged.  
  
"I pay them to help me, and they do what I tell them to do. It's that simple." The President seemed filled with energy; he paced back and forth in the elevator car as it shot down the inside of his building.  
  
This caused the woman to smirk somewhat. "You're certainly energetic."  
  
"I never expected the windfall that accompanied the raid last night," he said in an excited tone. "We have representatives from all but one of the Crests now, do you realize that? All of them but one!"  
  
"It's worth celebrating," she replied coolly. "Shall we give everyone a day off?"  
  
He nodded. "Schedule it for the Friday one week down the road. Nobody works that Friday but us and our guests." She opened her mouth to protest and the words died on her lips as she realized that the President was looking at her with a serious gaze. She hadn't believed that he had actually meant it, but she certainly believed it now.  
  
"Wow," she said in a monotone. "What great kindness."  
  
"You misunderstand," the President replied. "I don't intend on anyone witnessing what we're going to do."  
  
"Ah," she replied in a careful tone. "How are you certain that Hope will appear? We don't have that particular one and there's only one person who fits the bill."  
  
"He'll come," the President answered confidently. "He'll pursue the others. It's what the Chosen do -- they live or die as a team. I expect him here as soon as this afternoon; we'll be ready to begin once he shows up."  
  
"Hmm... I can understand why you would want the place clear of people. That would lead to questions being asked, wouldn't it?"  
  
"It's not everyday that a person changes so dramatically," the President said, and the Assistant smirked when she saw the gleam in his eye. "In fact, it's quite rare. We don't need to give anyone a scare."  
  
"We'll be doing that enough afterwards."  
  
****  
  
A D-3 is a very expensive and delicate piece of equipment, designed along specific parameters to interact with the myraid forces that power the Digital World. It is designed, more specifically, to allow access into the Digital World via an external portal and to allow a person to focus their internal power into useful energy for their partner Digimon. As such, the D-3 is extremely fragile should anything get through the outer casing.  
  
Ken Ichijouji, however, simply popped the case off without another thought and went right to work on it, rearranging things in the back with the help of tools pulled from Chardsy's kit. It was about seven in the morning and still quite dark outside; Ken had woken up an hour ago and started working on his D-3. He had an excellent working knowledge of how the Seals functioned; he decided that it was high time he found a loophole.  
  
Ken shook his head, puzzling out what to do next. He knew all about the Seals because he had designed them, so long ago. He preferred to not think about that particular time in his life, though. Pulling the D-3 up to the light, he used a pair of tweezers to carefully yank on one exposed piece of wiring, pulling it all the way out. He'd just have to keep working.  
  
With the offending wire out, Ken leaded back slightly in his chair. He took a moment to glance around, noting again the large posters for Gardening Sincerity and the lack of pretty much anything else to define the apartment. Chardsy hadn't gone for style when he bought his furniture, Ken thought, he'd simply gone for functionality and he certainly got that. Ken wrinkled his nose; Chardsy did run the place on a generator and there was gasoline in the air to prove it. A loud clank in the back heralded where Chardsy was; the man believed in getting a quick start on the day and had taken a crack at fixing some problem in his car. Ken didn't really understand how the thing worked but Chardsy was determined to fix whatever the problem was.  
  
Ken pulled the chair back up to the table and, leaning over, got back to work. He pulled the final wire out of the left-hand screen and, having it all on the table, took out a splicing tool and stripped the protection of the wire off with a quick flick of the wrist. Ken took the ends of both wires and began working them together, shaking his head slightly to clear it as he did so. He still had vestiges of that paper Chardsy had him read last night floating around in his head. Sighing, he paused a moment to consider it. That paper had been written almost three years ago but it was dead-on accurate on what he believed to be happening to the Real World. The paper first went into the problems; the way that humans were always tired, the odd detachment of everyone that he saw, and how dark it got during the night. It gave a plausible and disturbing explanation of why that was. Combined with what he had discovered it was more than merely disturbing. The paper went on to blame it all on the Odaiba Group, a conglomerate business out in Japan. Ken remembered the name from Chardsy's impromptu lecture the last night but what exactly they were was still eluding him. He'd just have to ask Chardsy --  
  
A smashing sound echoed through the house, followed very shortly by a stream of curses. Ken sighed; he'd ask them if Chardsy survived fixing the car.  
  
Ken fitted the now-spliced wires into the D-3's underside, mentally grimacing as he did so. D-3 components were a little hard to find in the Digital World. Now would not be the time to screw up a wiring job. Focusing a bit, he leaned forward, tightening the struts that held them together --  
  
Abruptly, the pieces glowed briefly and fused together. Ken wiped the sudden sweat off of his head, grinning despite himself. He was right; the Seals treated the gate as a one-way device, and if he started with something inside the Digital World, he could manuever freely through the Seals. As it was, he had attached the signal to his Crest and used that, which always left a piece of itself inside the Digital World, as the anchor to allow his signal to pass. Feverishly now, he labored over the pieces of his modified D-3 and eventually snapped the case back on. He pushed a few buttons and the screen lit up. It displayed two words: Call Pending. Ken settled back to wait, resigned; transferring anything to the Digital World through the Seals was bound to take some time.  
  
In the meantime... He got up and walked over to the kitchen. He'd been given permission to take whatever he wanted to eat from Chardsy before the man dropped off, but Ken was a bit uncertain. Opening a cabinet revealed several boxes of... something that had colorful labels and pictures. Ken took one of them out: it read "Apple Spice" and seemed to be some kind of "Oatmeal". Inside of it were several packets. He split one of them open and the contents fell out, scattering themselves over the part of the kitchen he was in. He raised an eyebrow, then turned and gathered up as much of the stuff as he could, throwing what got on the counter away. The label had directions on it, ones that called for boiling water and a cup. He got the cup easily enough and was about to ponder over what he should use to boil water when a beeping sound came from the other room. Ken abandoned his attempts to cook and ran out into the other room.  
  
The screen was displaying a tired-looking Biyomon. "Regent?" she asked into the mic. "Are you there?" Ken snatched up the D-3 and saw that she wasn't alone; what looked to be half of the staff .  
  
"Yeah!" Inwardly, he was rejoicing. He'd done it!  
  
"Hey! What do you need, Regent?" Biyomon seemed to lose some of the exhaustion. Ken noticed but his thoughts were a little centered on what he needed to do. "Where exactly are you, anyway?"  
  
He glanced around the room, noting the posters again as he did so. Something was familiar about that redhead... "Welcome to Casa del Chardsy," he said wryly. "First, I need to talk to Agumon and Stingmon. Can you get them in here on the line?"  
  
"Sure!" Biyomon then turned away from the mic and called out instructions. The people in the background moved around, and presently Biyomon looked back at the screen. "Agumon's asleep, but Stingmon's on his way."  
  
"Okay. Thanks, Biyomon."  
  
"Regent... can I ask you a question?" Ken glanced up from what he was ruminating, surprised. Biyomon had a look in her eyes that Ken had missed at first; it was a hungry, forlorn look. Ken couldn't turn her down, no matter what she asked.  
  
"Sure."  
  
"What's the real world... like?" I knew it, Ken thought to himself. I knew she'd ask that.  
  
"It's hard to describe. I mean, there's cars and stores and all sorts of things; there's weird food that I don't know how to cook..."  
  
Biyomon cut him off. "You never did learn how to cook, did you?" she asked, chuckling. "Always trying to help out the world."  
  
"No, I always ate what you guys put in front of me," Ken protested. "Besides, it was good."  
  
"It's gonna be hard on you to settle down." Biyomon chuckled again, but this time it was at Ken's mildly red ears. "Hey, look at that -- the Regent really is human!" With that, she burst out laughing.  
  
"Anyway..." Ken said, and she pulled herself back together while he tamed his ears. "I haven't been very far yet. I haven't found out why the Internet's gone down the tubes, but I have a few guesses. I guess I'd be almost finished here in a wierd way, except for this new problem." Biyomon cocked her head to the left, looking quizzically at him. "For whatever reason, it's dark." She pulled back, dismayed. Ken continued, "It's dark here. I can't put it any plainer than that. I don't know why it happened, but something has changed here in the real world and it's made everything and everyone dark."  
  
Biyomon stared at the video pickup. "That's terrible," she whispered.  
  
"It's like the darkness ran here after we cleaned it out of the Digital World." Ken clenched a fist involuntarily. "It's different here; it isn't like I used to be. It's... I can't even properly describe it. It's like the whole world's just been drained. As far as I can tell, anyway."  
  
Biyomon looked down at the mic, not meeting the Regent's gaze. "Is it... everywhere?"  
  
Ken said, very softly, "I think so."  
  
Biyomon glanced up. There were hints of tears on the edges of her eyes. "Anyway," she said quietly, "Stingmon just came in. Thanks, Ke-- uh, Regent." She pulled back, away from the mic pickup, and the much larger Stingmon came into the picture.  
  
"Hey, Regent!" Stingmon looked very happy. "What's up?"  
  
"Got the D-3 to punch a hole through the Seals. First off, how are things in the Digital World?"  
  
Stingmon pulled out a pad and pencil. "Okay, here goes... the Keeper wanted me to remind you that the season's drawing to a close, and that you need to be back in the Capital for it. That's in two weeks, Regent. Next, Angemon wanted you to know that Whamon's been talking to the Helpers. They've been doing surface stuff -- no big breaks, but the groundwork is there. Datamon's beginning to build a new complex out in the desert for human-digimon relations, for after the Seals go down. It's probably going to be as big as the Seal complex is."  
  
Ken rubbed his forehead. "Please tell me that he's not building a reverse pyramid again."  
  
"Does he ever build any other way? Piedmon's flyers are right on schedule, but a Megadramon decided to fly out a few months early. He got into the flock and chaos ensued; Piedmon took him down quickly enough, but now things between the Devis and the Dramons are really, really tense."  
  
"Keep them apart for now," Ken said. "When you get the chance, have a diplomatic team do something about their problems, but for now just avoid any conflict."  
  
"Got it," the insect replied, and made a note of it. "We've also run into a few problems between people and the Protectors. Clashes between them and people who just want to live their lives. As of yet, we've kept things quiet and local, but before long, things'll be pretty bad."  
  
Ken shook his head somewhat. "Tell me this: is Aquilamon ever mentioned in any of these reports?"  
  
"No. In fact, he seems to be a moderate on the Protectors these days. He even ordered a group of Protectors to fall back when they tried to arrest a Gazimon for stealing."  
  
"Good. I'm glad he's found a way to try and get along with the people."  
  
"He's not that bad, Ken -- it's just, you know, he can't deal with relationships all that well."  
  
"He could find a better way to express that," Ken retorted. "Alright, then, make sure you keep a loose eye on the whole organization. Better yet, cancel the alert. Nobody seems to be passing through into the Digital World, so we shouldn't have to worry about it."  
  
"I was hoping you'd say that, Regent, because I've already done it. Now, what's going on over there?" Stingmon put his pad away and settled into his seat  
  
Ken took a deep breath. "I think that I know what has happened to the Internet. I've been too busy trying to grasp what happened to the world itself, however, to focus too tightly on the Internet yet." Stingmon's gaze was clouded with a bit of confusion. "Sting, there's something really wrong with the real world. Something has happened to make the whole world go dark."  
  
"Uh.. huh? Regent, I don't understand."  
  
"Here's how it works. Keep in mind that I read most of this from an unconfirmed source and combined it with my own observations, so I can't say how accurate this is. First, the humans have these new reactors for power sources. They're called ED reactors and they work better than electricity, and they're a lot cheaper to produce, too; except that they draw on the energy of any humans around for power like my Spore does for its energy. When they have enough, they stop for a while and power devices like TVs until they need more." Stingmon was too stunned to react, and Ken continued: "That's only the first step, though. An Internet - like network entitled the VandeNet is designed to work with the Reactors in that it broadcasts energy through it to everyone who's surfing it. The catch is that it broadcasts the kind of energy my Spore eats."  
  
"Dark energy..." Stingmon uttered, looking shocked. "It's on a computer, which has to run off of a ED reactor... and the humans absorb the energy like a sponge, because they're low on energy all the time..."  
  
"And they get darker," Ken finished for him grimly. "It's bad, Stingmon."  
  
"This is bad," the insect repeated. "Oh yeah it is."  
  
"We need to test the long-term effects of this out, to understand what it's going to do to people."  
  
"Okay..." Stingmon trailed off, getting it back together. "Alright. I'm gonna transfer you over to Datamon. It'll take a few minutes for him to answer. He'll be able to tell you how exactly to test this out -- neither of us are scientists." The insect managed to smile weakly. "Take care, Regent," he said, and the screen abruptly flashed over to read "System Busy".  
  
Ken took the moment to glance up, sweating. Talking about the real world's problems was harder than he had imagined, and...  
  
And...  
  
And he had just noticed Chardsy, standing in the doorframe to his left, grease on hands, incredulous expression on his face, and slack jaw. Ken's mouth set itself in a very thin line.  
  
"What the hell?" Chardsy managed, then made a squeak. He closed his mouth, swallowed, and tried again. "What the hell was all that about?!"  
  
"Would you believe that this is how I contact Harvard?" Ken managed to say. Inwardly, he was kicking himself over blowing his cover. Chardsy reacted to that explosively.  
  
"What the fuck, dude! You were fucking talking to a giant bug, who was talking back! What the hell do you expect me to believe, dude?! You fucking lied to me, you asshole!" Chardsy started pacing around the room, furious, waving his arms around. "You lied last night, and you lied right there in front of me. You ain't no Harvard grad boy. You ain't from around here at all -- you're from that crazy Digital World thing!"  
  
Ken jerked his head up at this. "What do you know about the Digital World?" he asked sharply.  
  
"I know what everyone else knows, dumbass! I knew that there was another world when it appeared in the sky ten years ago, and I saw some people go up there like everyone else! I know about the crazy fog thingie that happened over in Japan at the same time!"  
  
"That was before my time," Ken said. Chardsy didn't seem to have heard him.  
  
"And now, I see some crazy dude who doesn't know shit about what the world's dealin' with come in here and give orders to a giant bug! What the hell is a Regent, anyway?!" Some kind of ruler dude?!"  
  
Ken usually had a large amount of patience to his name, but right now he had been drained of it over what had happened to the real world. "Yes," Ken replied tightly, "I do happen to run the place right now."  
  
Chardsy stopped cold. "You serious, dude? Then why're you here?"  
  
Ken kept the tight expression on his face. "I'm checking out why we lost contact with the Internet."  
  
"Dude, that's..." He trailed off, staring straight ahead. Ken waited for him to finish. "Why me, dude?" he managed after a moment.  
  
"You were the first person I saw that wasn't being affected by the machines, and you responded when I made my little proposition," Ken said. Chardsy looked over at him.  
  
"What do you want from me?" Chardsy asked him.  
  
"I want you to live your life," Ken replied seriously, "and let me tend to the world that I run."  
  
"No dice, dude," Chardsy shook his head. "You get me involved in this, you gotta give a bit more than cash. I can always get cash, dude. This..." He trailed off again. "This is serious shit."  
  
"Then you want to help?" Ken asked, confused and still somewhat upset at being caught. At about the same time, the Digivice went off and the screen cleared from the System Busy sign to reveal the unusual frame of Datamon on the screen. Chardsy stiffened up somewhat at the digimon's more unorthodox appearance.  
  
"Regent, hello," the digimon grated out. "It's quite the surprise hearing from you, what with the Seals and all. You must tell me how you managed to punch through them so easily when you get a chance. We certainly haven't had much to do around here other than that, though; it's been as quiet as a mouse otherwise. Anyway, you wanted me for something?"  
  
"I need to use my D-3 to take energy readings and confirm a report, and I'd like to know how to do it without any major tools." Chardsy closed his jaw, settled back, and watched with the faintest edge of a grin on his face.  
  
"Sure," Datamon said. "I just need for you to put the D-3 down on some kind of surface and I'll send you some tools. After your little retooling of the D-3 I believe that it in itself will be sufficient for a transfer." Ken did so, setting the black object down on the nearby table that he had labored at all that morning. After a few seconds of Datamon manipulating controls in the background the little device's screen suddenly flared with light; both Ken and Chardsy pulled back somewhat, hands or arms raised to block out the light. The sigil for Kindness, a single rose crown, was clearly outlined in the glow; and it quickly resolved to reveal another small device next to the D-3; a small boxy device that had no screen, just scopes and a few dials. Chardsy stared at the new device while Ken picked up the D-3.  
  
"How do I control it?" Ken asked.  
  
"It's simple," Datamon said smugly. "You merely have to place the device in the general vicinity of any kind of energy source and it will be able to parse what kind of energy it is and the amount. It can also tell how much energy the source should have -- that's what the second dial is for, on the left." Ken tossed the device over to Chardsy, who caught it and examined it with wide eyes.  
  
"Christ," he muttered to himself in amazement.  
  
"Thanks, Datamon. I'll send the results over to you when I can obtain them." Ken was about to turn the device off when Datamon held up a hand, stopping him.  
  
"Make sure you get a good, solid sample," Datamon said. "To do an accurate survey, you need no less than ten thousand people."  
  
"I know," Ken said. "Oh, and don't build an upside-down pyramid this time. Goodbye, Datamon," he said, and cut off the transmission before Datamon's startled response could be sent through. "Well?" he asked Chardsy.  
  
"I don't know, man, this just isn't what I could have ever expected..." Chardsy dropped the reader on the table next to Ken's D-3 and collapsed in a nearby chair. Ken remained silent, allowing Chardsy to collect himself. After some time, Chardsy's lip twitched upwards and he glanced at Ken. "So.. you, uh, gonna do somethin' about Odaiba?"  
  
"If they're at fault, then yes, I will," Ken responded. "I have a new problem, though. Do you know where I can find ten thousand different people?"  
  
"Yeah," Chardsy said, and he sounded better. More like the man that Ken had met the night before at the pizza place. "Yeah, I know exactly where we can find that many people. More. A lot more."  
  
At Ken's quizzical glance, Chardsy indicated the large cardboard cutout in the corner. "We're gonna go to a concert, man. We're gonna see Gardening Sincerity live."  
  
****  
  
Miyako Inuoe was ready to take on the world. She was dressed as a simple secretary, with clearances up to the twentieth floor of the Odaiba Group, she had a recording pad, she had an assistant of her own -- a well- dressed and still slightly dazed Takeru Takaishi, now clad in a hat to hide the dressing -- and she had an assignment; follow the American tour group around the lower parts of the building, take notes, and turn in her observations to her supervisor, Mr. Nakamura, when she was done.  
  
She had no intention on doing that for its own sake; she was here for her comrades! She and the others were ready for battle, too -- they carried miniature versions of the tasers that the team used when it was hitting buildings. They wouldn't last as long nor stun as hard but they'd be quite sufficient for the task at hand. Miyako had no illusions on whether she'd have to use it. The only question was when and on who.  
  
Miyako knew quite a bit about the way the Odaiba Group operated. It was a huge building of hundreds of employees; it had perhaps twenty vice presidents and almost eighty supervisors. Each supervisor was responsible for ten people under their direct command, and the twenty vice presidents were responsible for four supervisors. It was a smooth chain of command, except for one thing: Miyako had a mole in the organization at the supervisor level; a careful, thorough, well-respected supervisor without ambition named Jyou Kido. Jyou was twenty-two and the only supervisor allowed on the 64th floor; it was his personal medical wing. He had been chosen for that by the President because of his medical knowledge.  
  
He had allowed her to slip inside the headquarters unnoticed before, and the two of them had drilled the thing to a science. It was harder for him to take on four people, and he was worried, but he had allowed Miyako to do it, this one time only. He knew, of course, that there were prisoners inside the Odaiba Group, and had told them where they were being held; in the basement laboratory, which was run by scientists that may as well have been robots, so focused was their concentration. Jyou was expected to be on the 64th floor for the day, taking care of one of the scientists -- Miyako didn't know which one -- but had managed to slip her a pair of card keys for the basement. They were generic things and completely untraceable.  
  
Of course, if she didn't do her part well, he would pay the price. Miyako didn't know what that would be but she had no intention on finding out.  
  
The tour group rounded a corner and the man in the front -- she didn't recognise him -- waved a hand at the wall on the right, explaining some minor thing about the company's ED-3 reactors. There was an appropriate chorus of "oohs" and "ahhs" from the crowd, and Miyako jotted down what the specific reactions of the people she was assigned to watch. Beside her, Takeru's camera whirred as he shot another ten megs of digital film. The group stopped there, to watch the preprepared video of what was happening, and Miyako allowed her mind to wander somewhat.  
  
Aya was down below in the basement already. She was assigned as a custodian for the science labs and had been down there for almost five hours now. Miyako was worried about Aya's restraint; she had to deal with rude scientists and endless dusting; that wasn't good for a person's relaxation. Kevin was a receptionist for the basement floor. It was a match made in hell but Kevin's humor should have been enough to keep all but the most upset people thinking that he was merely incompetent rather than a spy.  
  
The tour group turned towards the elevators and Miyako realized that they had made it to the twentieth floor; her assignment was over. Her schedule, prepared by Jyou, had an hour-long slot open for lunch. Takeru was her assistant in this and as such he had the break too. The large man led the group into the elevator and Miyako and Takeru, along with almost twenty other people, were free to go for the moment.  
  
Miyako wasted no time. "Come on, Mr. Takaishi, we need to get to lunch." She dropped off her accumulated notes in a nearby basket while striding towards the stairway.  
  
Takeru dropped his camera in the same basket, walking slowly. He was still a bit woozy, but he remembered his lines. "Yes, Ms. Inoue," he spouted faithfully and dumbly, and followed her to the stairway. She zipped her card on through and it obligingly unlocked. She moved through it, closing it behind her, and Takeru mimicked her action with his card. The door also acknowledged his presence and they both went down the concrete stairs to the first floor.  
  
She slid her card on through the reader and opened the door, letting it fall shut without passing through. Takeru did the same. Now, the building's computers had acknowledged the two of them outside of any secure area, and Jyou's job and reputation were safe. Pulling out the special cards, ones that Jyou had created for this kind of sneaking around, she walked over to the door marked "LAB/STORAGE: CLEARANCE EMPLOYEES ONLY" and slid the card through the red-lit slot. It beeped once, the lock's red light changed to green, and the door unlocked itself.  
  
She stepped through the entrance and said, "Okay. You go and find Kevin; I'm gonna meet up with Aya. Catch you on the other side, Takeru." He nodded.  
  
"Try to keep her under control." With that, he strode down the hall to the reception / relaxation area that the scientists maintained. She went the other way, towards the labs themselves.  
  
She encountered Aya on her third trip through the halls. Aya was dressed as a generic custodian and was covered with dust; it made her look tired and ghastly. "Hi," she managed to say. "I hate this." She coughed.  
  
Miyako said, "Well, finding the others and we're getting out of here. We need to find a quick and easy exit."  
  
"Your spy didn't know?"  
  
"He's always up on the higher floors; he doesn't know much about the basement level." The two of them started away from the area, walking out towards the stairway that Miyako and Takeru had arrived in. They had crossed the middle of the area when they turned a corner and encountered something neither of them had planned for; one of the President's Assistants was coming through. He was a huge man, dressed in a solid black Armani tuxedo, and rumored to be kindly, but he was an Assistant to the most ruthless man Miyako had ever known. Despite Miyako's suddenly wildly beating heart she, along with Aya, managed to keep ahold of herself and moved politely out of his way. He walked past them without a second glance. Trailing in his wake, though...  
  
Trailing in his wake were people she had known in a previous life. Behind him were two members of the elite Squad A: the redheaded Sora Takenouchi and the blue-eyed blond Yamato Ishida. Both wore no expression and simply followed the hulking Assistant down the hallway towards some place in the labs. Sora, whom she had had beside her to laugh and yell and be girls around; Yamato, who had shown her an artist's perspective on life and people, one of the rare guys that she could be mostly relaxed around. The shock and her already high heartbeat became too much for Miyako; the three of them seemed to fuzz together into one spinning blob...  
  
Miyako slowly became aware of Aya waving her hand in front of Miyako's face and she shook her head; it seemed suddenly clogged up. "Miya?" Aya was asking worriedly. "Are you alright?"  
  
"What happened?" Miyako asked dimly. "I feel dizzy."  
  
"You collapsed in the hallway," Aya grunted out, "and I dragged you into an empty lab before anyone could see us."  
  
Meanwhile, Takeru had managed to make his way over to the reception area, which was completely empty; the scientists being at work. Still a bit woozy, he had sat down for a minute or two to clear his head. While he was down, someone came up from behind him and glanced down at him. "Hey there, TK."  
  
Takeru glanced up, surprised. "Kev?"  
  
Kevin grinned. "You're the best thing that's happened all day around here. I've never been so bored in my life." He made a face. "So when do we get everyone out?"  
  
"You know where they are?" Takeru replied, astonished.  
  
"Sure," Kevin said, his grin edging towards a self-satisfied smirk. "They're all in that room over there. When do we pull them out?"  
  
"Right now," Takeru replied, and got up carefully. He adjusted the hat ever-so-slightly and nodded towards the door marked "STORAGE: CLEARANCE 3" and, pulling out one of Jyou's cards, walked right towards the door. Kevin followed him nervously. "How did you find out, anyway?"  
  
"It was in the morning reports that I had to read." Kevin shrugged. "I'm surprised it was there too, but more power to us, right?"  
  
"Convenient," Takeru said, and swiped the card into the reader; once it beeped, he pulled the door open, walking into the area. Unsurprisingly it was an enormous warehouse-style room, and they stood on a catwalk above it, able to see all of the well-lit room beneath them. He and Kevin walked quietly over to a dark corner, letting the door close quietly behind them. The area was littered with Odaiba Group personnel, some of them with guns. Thankfully, none of them seemed to have picked up on Takeru and Kevin's arrival. Directly below them, however...  
  
Takeru had to bite his lip to keep from calling out. Below them, in a constuct roughly similar to a crude cage, were all of the others from the base. He immediately saw Hikari, off to one side with only Iori to keep her company, and she didn't look happy. His heart made a strange pang and he took his eyes off of her, trying to focus. Beside him, Kevin said, "Eighty-six people there. Everyone's there, all right. It's a miracle that nobody got killed or hurt in that raid other than you, TK."  
  
"I'll say," he breathed out. "How do we get past the guards?"  
  
"Easy," Kevin said. Takeru glanced at what Kevin was doing. Holding up the wired device, Kevin said, "We cause confusion and take them in the haze."  
  
Takeru's eyes were wide. "Alright, Kevin. I didn't even think to grab one of those things."  
  
With that, Kevin pulled the pins out of the four smoke grenades and tossed them on the floor, snapping up tiny goggles as he did so. Takeru ran over to the door and swiped his card, propping it open and allowing the light to shine through The grenades hit the ground smoking and made it all but impossible to see in the room. The prisoners, not sure what was happening, put up an enormous fuss, one that the room's size and design multiplied to impossibly loud. Meanwhile, Kevin roamed around the room with a miniature version of the group's heavy tasers in his hand, shocking guards who were too confused to fall back onto their training. After the first one, he scooped up the guard's assault rifle and carried that around with him too. The ones that ran towards the door in an attempt to go somewhere useful met Takeru's own taser and were shocked into unconsciousness.  
  
Eventually Kevin ran out of guards to pop. Picking a part of the cage at random, he smashed the bar with his gun and strode inside. The others were afraid of him when he entered, as he was wearing tiny goggles and carrying a gun -- but he put that to rest when he took off the goggles and, picking a person at random, told him, "Geez, if you guys got all worked up like this when I was gone, I can't even imagine what the guards had to deal with!"  
  
Iori was the first to figure it out. "Kevin?"  
  
"It's me," he replied jovially. "Let's go, guys... Miyako's got the way out under control." He smashed other places in the cage and, as one, the group sped towards the only place they could make out in the smoke -- the lit, open door that Takeru was manning. Happy murmering spread through the crowd as they went up the stairs and out the door with Kevin and Iori in the lead.  
  
Hikari was one of the last ones through the door; she stopped at Takeru, looking at his hat. "You're still hurt!" she scolded him, but hugged him desperately anyway, grinning wildly. After a moment and more quietly she murmered into his chest, "I didn't think I was walking away from this one. Thanks, Takeru."  
  
He smiled down at the brunette in his arms. "Of course I was coming for you," he said quietly, then broke the embrace. He held Hikari at arms' length and said, "We've gotta go -- there isn't time for this stuff now!" With that, they ran back to join the others in a mad push for the middle area. "I only hope that Miyako came through for us!" he shouted over the din of ninety people running forwards.  
  
The back door of the Odaiba Group was more of a shipping / receiving area, accustomed to nothing besides the occasional pizza delivery breaking up the monotony of trucks coming in and trucks coming out. The elderly security guard was, therefore, completely unprepared for Iori leading a yelling mass of people to hurtle towards his area, carrying with them in the press perhaps a half-dozen real employees. They surged towards the open shipping door -- large enough for two tractor-trailers -- and scattered upon getting into the open. The only thing that he did before being swept aside by the crowd was slam a fist onto the ALERT button on the wall.  
  
Miyako had managed to get over the initial shock and was moving again, Aya behind her. "Jyou didn't tell me much about this place. Any idea where there would be an emergency exit or something?" Miyako asked while glancing down a long hallway. They walked past closed doors and quiet laboratories. Nobody paid the slightest bit of attention to either of them.  
  
"Who were those people?" Aya asked.  
  
"They were some people I used to know," Miyako said, irritated and upset still. "Are you going to answer my question?"  
  
"No idea," Aya said. "I guess we'll just have to use the stairs, presuming we find them."  
  
Miyako shook her head. "I hope that somebody careful got everyone up out the back door already. This is taking too much time. I don't think they're he--"  
  
It was about then that the worst thing that could have happened happened: the alarms went off. Jyou had shown her an alarm going off before and it was loud, obvious, and the whole company was trained in what to do. She swore, knowing the consequences: that meant that Kevin and Takeru had gotten them out faster than she thought! She wasn't ready to get outside! She broke into a run, turning corners hard and moving towards the stairway.  
  
Aya didn't follow her. Not having Miyako's training, she could only stare at the alarm. To her, that meant that they had failed; the Odaiba Group knew that they had been there! Even now, security forces would be swarming all of her friends and new family... Aya's fear transformed into rage. She resolved to go down swinging and made her way towards a particular room she had noticed earlier, thinking only of how to hurt the Odaiba Group.  
  
She moved to the right and ran for the far guard station; there was one on each floor but this particular one didn't seem to be manned by anyone. It was a place that she had cleaned earlier. She knew it was full of guns and grenades and other implements of destruction. She broke the window in the door, reaching around through the new hole and opening the door. She ran inside, fully intending on going out in a blaze of glory... only to find a small critter of some sort inside. It wasn't very tall or very big; it merely had huge eyes and white/black fur; it reminded Aya vaguely of a cat. While she was staring at it, it glanced up at her. Curiously, its eyes seemed to glow slightly; they flared up with light once, and the world quickly spiralled away for Aya.  
  
Miyako got as far as Lab 32 when the security doors started slamming shut. She dived inside the lab before its doors came crashing down; she knew that her bogus cards wouldn't work on the Odaiba Group doors now, and being somewhere was better than being stuck out in the hallway. She glanced around wildly, searching for something to find a way to escape -- and saw the far screen, still on even though the room was unoccupied otherwise.  
  
Takeru was at the tail end of the group, but he had let Kevin use the card key -- had given it to him when he'd run by where Takeru was holding the door -- and the group had mostly streamed out of the reception area, up the stairs, and out of the building's rear entrance when it all went bad. The alarm had sounded moments before but it was a little too late; the vast majority of the group had already made it outside and even now Takeru could see the open door; with Iori at his side he pressed forwards, attempting to make it outside.  
  
He never made it.  
  
Kevin had stayed behind to keep an eye on the area, brandishing the assault rifle at any employee that came close to them. However, on the far side of the hallway, hidden by the curve of the hallway, a Squad 1 member carefully lined up Kevin's chest in his sniper sight. He squeezed the trigger ever so slightly, allowing the recoilless gun to emit a little puff. On the other side of the scope Kevin dropped his gun and went right over, crashing down on his head. There was no blood.  
  
Iori gasped when Kevin went down. He ran over to his friend, grabbing the body and pulling it towards the door; Hikari and Takeru joined him, and that's all that the sniper had been hoping for. Three short puffs later all four of them were down on the floor. The sniper made his way casually over to the downed foursome, pulling out a device and dropping his tranquilizer rifle as he went. Pulling the needle out of Kevin's chest, he scanned him with the little device; when it came up with a negative beep the sniper, Tai Kamiya, pulled out another needle and pressed it into Kevin's arm. He then pulled out his radio and called for pickup, even as the suddenly lifeless body of Kevin began to stiffen.  
  
Miyako looked across at the screen and realized that she'd sat in front of it before she knew what she was doing. It was running some kind of test -- one that looked familiar somehow. It displayed cycling lines of text underneath a picture of some kind of on-screen box item, one that flickered with a grayish light, similar to a TV without a signal. Computers were her old specialization and she clicked a few times, trying to figure out what kind of program it was. It was familiar and comforting somehow, and even as her brain clamored at her to do -something- other than stand around and mess with computers she couldn't help it. She brought the machine to a screen that read: "Test? 1)Y 2)N"  
  
The door opened.  
  
Miyako spun around, grasping for her taser, and stopped abruptly, her breath coming out of her in one long gasp. She couldn't see the creature on the other side of the room well enough to be sure, but Miyako discarded any idea of that when the person came into the light. Except it wasn't a person, really; it was white from the chest up, and solid black from the chest down. It was small and obviously feline; on its tail was some kind of ring.  
  
"Gatomon?" Miyako whispered, hushed, and sat down on the keyboard hard, forcing the computer behind her to beep. "What happened to you?"  
  
The cat smiled grimly. "Glad you remember me, traitor." She jumped up on a nearby desk, glaring daggars at Miyako. "Or do you really remember me any more than the others do? I doubt it."  
  
"You're -- we thought --"  
  
"Thought what? That the Emperor had killed me? He can't do a thing now; he was killed by his own creation, just like you and the others left me and Daisuke and V-Mon to die at that thing's hands!" Gatomon shrieked. "It thought that it would be worse for me to live, so it threw me out into the real world! Only the Odaiba Group took me in -- nobody else would even bother!"  
  
Miyako had gone extremely pale. "We had to run!" she yelled. "Daisuke told us to run!"  
  
"You abandoned us!" Gatomon shrieked back and threw back her left paw. "You'll pay right now -- LIGHTNING CLAW"  
  
A powerful blast of light tore its way out of her left paw as she brought it forward, the scything energies slamming into and through Miyako's right shoulder with a loud crunching sound. Miyako screamed and fell backwards, knocked by the force of the attack's impact into the computer screen --  
  
--which was brightly lit, running its own test that she had initialized when she sat on the keyboard--  
  
--and she fell through the screen, shrieking in terror and pain, and hearing Gatomon's frustrated yowl as her target went somewhere she couldn't follow even as the room above exploded into light and smoke.  
  
****  
  
Miyako fell through a sea of stars. She tumbled down a waterfall, through an oddly glistening ocean, falling deep down, through a layer of stone, and into another sky. She felt nothing; not even her shoulder, as she dropped through another waterfall, this one with seemingly no end. Ahead of her, however...  
  
Ahead of her was a patch of distorted space, where there was no waterfall or light. Ahead of her she could see where something had taken a piece of the place that she was falling through and twisted it beyond recognition. Ahead of her she could hear a dull thrumming and feel a faint vibration in the air, one growing worse and worse as she approached the area and it was getting so bad she couldn't hear herself think if only it would go away go away go...  
  
Miyako passed out and fell into the grasp of the Seal.  
  
****  
  
Another day, another three-mile run around the Chamber, the Keeper mused to himself.  
  
He was tall and relaxed, thin and quiet, honest and open with himself and those around him. He was wearing a simple robe, as opposed to the heavy one he wore most of the time or the loose uniform he wore for the season. At one point in time in his life he had run five miles a day, but he never really got anything else out of it that he couldn't get out of three.  
  
He rounded a corner and stopped, slowing down as he approached a door in the Chamber. The Regent had sworn to get back in time for the end of the season, Stingmon had said, and if there was nothing else the Keeper could say for the Regent it was that he knew how to keep his word. Still, it was the Keeper's carefully considered idea that the Regent had never learned how to relax to the point of having fun. It was too bad, too; he coulda been a heckuva player, if he'd just chill a bit.  
  
The Keeper opened the big heavy door, slowing down somewhat. When he had become the Keeper the Chamber of the Chosen was like a sanctuary; now that he was used to it he still thought of it as a sanctuary, just one that he was used to. Yeah. He walked through the area, noting the Acolytes along the right side of the place. They wanted to help out and clean around the Chamber, and who was he to say no? They were very thorough and they weren't hard on the eyes at all, either. He chuckled a bit at that and went on through, to the innermost part of the Chamber.  
  
It was here that the Digieggs that Gennai had stolen from Piedmon had been incubated and the Digimentals had been constructed. It was here that he went, every day, to keep an eye on the crests and sigils of the Chosen. It was a disappointing time because he could tell how closely a Chosen was following their sigil and, lately, that wasn't happening much. He shook his head at his own cynicism and walked forward...  
  
And stopped dead. There, in front of him, clothes torn and shoulder blasted, unconscious and bleeding on his floor, was a lavender-haired woman from the mildly distant past. She was one of the few Chosen who's sigil was still shot through with color but her breathing came erratically; even from this distance he could tell she was barely managing to breathe at all. He ran to her side, pulling out a small flask out of his robe as he did so and pouring the contents onto her wounded shoulder. It glowed briefly, pulsed once, then faded away. The bleeding stopped and her breathing became more relaxed almost immediately. He leaned back, sweating despite himself, then gathered up the woman in his arms and walked back into the main area.  
  
Upon entering the area all activity outside stopped dead as his Acolytes all stared at the woman in his arms. "Prepare a recovery room," the Keeper said wryly. "It seems we have a guest."  
  
**** 


	6. History Lesson

PAUSE FOR BOURGEOIS LEGALITIES "Digimon" and all characters and situations contained within are copyrighted trademarks of Bandai, Saban Entertainment and Upper Deck. Permission is hereby granted by the author to reproduce this document unless you try to make money off of it; if so, please contact me first at Calcite_McWhalen@hotmail.com. I may be a grown-up cartoon fan but I do know my way around Title 17.  
  
****  
  
History Lesson  
  
****  
  
The Acolytes had finished patching up Miyako hours ago. They'd cleaned and dressed what remained of the wound; they'd washed her down, shooing the Keeper out of the room; they'd even given her a new outfit -- one of the hooded robes that they themselves wore -- and still Miyako had yet to awaken.  
  
Fortunately for the rest of the Acolytes, the Keeper had managed to keep his obvious apprehension to a minimum. His healing solution had worked wonders in keeping her alive but the more advanced medical procedures that the Acolytes had practiced on her were almost beyond his desire to understand. Cleaning and bandages were two things he never really liked to do, anyway. Sitting quietly outside the room, waiting for some word from one of them, he arched his fingers and focused inward. He knew exactly why she wasn't waking up, but that didn't make anything easier on him.  
  
He rose from his lotus position and knocked on the door three times, quietly. The door itself was made of imported East Server cherrywood, a rich and heavy composite, and it was carefully fitted into the stonework that surrounded the door, and that was carefully fitted into the ceiling, composed of meticulously painted works by artists from the Capital. That ceiling was made up of thousands of individually carved stone blocks, which had been fitted together so as to not waste space or use much mortar, and that ceiling was only partially grafted onto the actual ceiling of the cavern. The Keeper had discovered the place some four years ago; with the unorthodox help of the Acolytes he unearthed the heart of the Chamber. That's not enough, he'd exclaimed, and they all set to work on the Chamber. Three years later it was ready for people to live in it.  
  
Right now, though, the solid construction was a curse. He wanted to put his fist through a door!  
  
Keeping his temper, he stood quietly; eventually, one of the Acolytes answered the door. This one was a bit unusual; she kept her hood over her head at all times while she was outside of the Chamber, like they all did, but inside it she kept her hood back over her shoulder. Right now, she wore an expression of tired concern lightly dabbed with irritation. "There hasn't been any change, Keeper," she said. "She's presentable, however, so you can go on in."  
  
He nodded, face betraying nothing, and held up a hand. "You've been working on this for five hours," he said softly. "Take a break for awhile, okay?" She nodded and walked away, running a hand through his hair on the way. In the old days, it would have made him spin around, embarrassed, but now it elicited a quiet grin and another nod. He'd take what support and family he could get these days.  
  
The Acolytes inside the room got up, three strong, and walked quietly out of the room as he went inside. The room itself wasn't more than twelve feet in length and no wider than eight feet; the exact calculations escaped the Keeper right now but he knew that to have almost thirty of these rooms together they'd have to be pretty small. The room contained a simple desk, dresser, and a bed, one that had had three changes of sheets in the last five hours. The acolytes couldn't stabilise the bleeding until then. Miyako herself was out on the bed, and the mere sight her was enough to have him throw his hood over his head, blotting out the light from the luminescent moss; the only practical source of light in a cavern such as this.  
  
He sat down in a chair, pulling it out from the desk, and contemplated. She's seen better days, he observed to himself; her once luxurious hair had been fried by its run-in with the Seals and whatever else she'd encountered on the other side and the Acolytes had been forced to cut it short -- almost to the roots short -- and they'd styled it that way, too. She was clad in a simple acolyte robe; her shoulder was wrapped thickly with bandages and taped that way, the Keeper knew, but the robe covered it nicely. She'd had glasses but they were damaged beyond repair, the lenses shattered and the frames twisted. He'd already made a call out to Leomon on West Server, who claimed that his glass-production factories were down. It was up to him, he guessed, to fix that particular problem.  
  
Among all of that, though, was the expression on her face. It was one of fear and tension and weariness all rolled into one little ball, and the Keeper had a sinking feeling that she wasn't having a very relaxing sleep. She tossed and turned a bit and generally made quite a fuss while perched on the edge of whatever dream she was having. All of that, because of him; because of the healing power painstakingly extracted from the Digimental of Light, that he used on her to keep her alive. While it healed the body, it also attempted to cure the ills of a soul. The problems of people, however, were simply too much for any mere potion to heal; the person exposed to the solution would have to suffer from its effects, trapped in a dream-like state until the potion ran its course.  
  
He cleared his throat, placed a glass of water on the nearby desk, and held out his hands. Calling on the Digimental of Sincerity he focused forwards, drawing on its growth ability, and a quiet green glow filled his hands and spread to Miyako's eyes briefly as digital matter formed itself, reshaping from a blob of random energy into a small bit of metal and glass; abruptly, the glow extinguished itself and a pair of glasses dropped into his hands. Exhausted, he took a long sip from the water glass and, placing the newly minted glasses on the side table, he waited for her.  
  
****  
  
Miyako floated in a cloud. It was an exotic cloud, at that -- colored purple and white and constantly moving around her. Presently she realized that she couldn't feel her shoulder -- in fact, there wasn't any sensation from any part of her body below her neck. Terrified, she called out for help, only to hear her voice echo out into the cloud. She found herself drifting off and couldn't control where her mind's eye was moving, and a scene from her past, one she had tried to forget, came up into her consciousness...  
  
"Yeah!" Daisuke shouted, pumping a fist. Magnamon had just dodged a surprise attack, moving skillfully out of the way of Kimeramon's SkullGreymon hand and blasting with his Magna Blaster attack, knocking the huge Digimon out of the sky for the first time. Miyako raised a hand tiredly towards Magnamon, shouting encouragement even as the armored titan lifted his left hand and shot off another Magna Blaster, one that Kimeramon took solidly on his MetalGreymon body armor. "We've got him on the run now!" Daisuke shouted.  
  
Beside her, Iori crouched next to a battered Armadillomon, grinning despite his serious nature. "I never thought we'd get through this one!" he shouted to Miyako over the din of battle. She nodded enthusiastically, cradling the barely-awake Hawkmon in her arms.  
  
Hikari shouted over, "Are you guys okay?" Her Salamon, dedigevolved from Gatomon, rested itself on her shoulder while Takeru's Patamon was slumped in his arms next to the hat that it loved.  
  
"We're great!" Miyako shouted back. "Let's see if we can help out Daisuke!"  
  
"Great idea!" Takeru yelled. "Patamon, up for another go?"  
  
"Uhh..." Patamon groaned, then halfway sat up. "I think I might be able to help out a bit..." Across the field, Kimeramon rallied itself and regained the air again, blasting away at Magnamon who dodged the brunt of the attack and rolled easily away from the follow-up clawing, rapping the giant Digimon sharply on its armored head as he did so.  
  
"Armadillomon! We've got to give Magnamon a hand!" Iori shook the little guy up to his feet again. "I know you can do it!"  
  
Now fully awake, Salamon turned to her partner. "If you think I can do it, Hikari, I know I can."  
  
Hikari hugged her partner softly. "Of course you can, Salamon!"  
  
Mikayo was about to follow suit -- she had already carefully laid out the tired Hawkmon out on a nearby rock -- when she noticed the Emperor some distance away. Even from this distance she could tell by his slack expression and frozen stance that the thought of true defeat had never crossed his mind until that very moment, when Magnamon sent another flight of missiles onto the already battered back of Kimeramon. The giant dropped out of the air sharply this time, crashing roughly to the ground and, for the first time, howling in pain. Almost in sympathy, the Emperor began to shake slightly and Miyako saw his sunglasses fall to the ground from the motion, shook right off their perch on his nose.  
  
"Uhh, guys..." she started, but she never finished the statement. The Emperor suddenly stopped shaking and, some decision made, pulled out his black D-3. He held it out towards the fight, where Magnamon had stopped attacking to survey his battered foe, and screamed something at the top of his lungs. The Digivice suddenly flickered with an odd black glow, one that painted the area in a purple light. The glow quickly fell away, however, leaving the Emperor standing there pointing his D-3 at the fallen Kimeramon.  
  
Hikari was the first to notice, and she screamed and pointed, suddenly panicked. Everyone followed her outstretched finger with their eyes to see, off in the distance, one of the Emperor's control spires falling apart. It wasn't smashed by any kind of blow -- it simply came apart into a cloud of black fragments. The one next to it crumbled in a similar fashion, and the fragments of both spires floated in the air briefly before flying away... straight into the D-3 of the Digimon Emperor.  
  
It began to shine a deep black, glowing more and more as the next cloud of spire matter hit it... and the next... and the next... and before the Chosen knew quite what was happening the sky became blackened with the sheer amount of spire fragments that the Digimon Emperor had called. His D- 3 began to glow more and more, outshining even the sun in its deep black glow and it continued to pull power from every fragment that touched it. The power radiating from the D-3 and the incoming dark clouds working together caused a miniature windstorm to kick up in the area, one that Miyako took shelter behind a nearby rock to avoid, dragging Hawkmon with her. The other Chosen did likewise, save Daisuke who stood out in the open and braved the elements to be with his Magnamon. Being at the heart of it, the Emperor didn't seem affected by the windstorm.  
  
Miyako did some fast calculating. Since the Emperor had taken control of Kimeramon he'd simply charged across pretty much every loose territory he could find and laid down a spire there. That meant that he had literally thousands of control spires under his control. Judging by the stream of black matter that was being pulled into the D-3, blotting out the sky and creating an unnatural glow that lit the entire plateau that they were doing battle on. If every one of them was capable of disrupting their powers with its own, and he had called thousands of them together in one place --  
  
"What's going on?" Daisuke yelled, unsure of what to do. His eyes were riveted on the spreading black glow from the Emperor's D-3.  
  
"I don't know!" Takeru answered back, frightened. "I've never seen this before!"  
  
"Just keep down," Iori shouted. "I'll try and interrupt him!"  
  
Miyako opened her mouth to yell at him for suggesting that and abruptly shut up as he ran out into the gale, charging towards the Emperor and the heart of the storm. He ran directly towards the black glow of the D-3, only to be tossed back like a doll when he got too close to the whipping center of the windstorm. He fell to the ground hard, landing on his back shaken; Takeru ventured out and grabbed him, pulling Iori behind the rocks he was hiding behind.  
  
The storm grew worse and Miyako screamed when the helmet she had always wore was ripped off her head by the force of the furious wind. She fell on top of Hawkmon and anchored herself to the rock, staring at the the Emperor's blindingly bright D-3 in abject terror. On the other side, she could hear Takeru yelling at Hikari to stay down and Iori's startled yelping as the sky became completely black and only the darkness shined, glinting off of Magnamon's armor.  
  
Then, suddenly, the sky opened up again and the glow died down somewhat; the storm abruptly ceased and all manner of debris fell out of the sky, pelting Emperor and Chosen alike. Miyako ran out into the open, joining Daisuke and the others as they also broke cover and came over. "What did he do?" were the stunned first words out of Hikari's mouth. "I feel cold all over!"  
  
"I don't know," Iori said winded, "but I'll guess that he's not done yet. Look!"  
  
They all stared at the Emperor, who had not yet lowered his arm. His black D-3 still radiated power, manifested now in electrical crackling around it and him. He wore a smirk on his face and a crazed look in his eyes, and he gave all of the Chosen a disturbing feeling. "You'll pay right now, Chosen!" he shouted, and braced his outstretched arm with the other one. He seemed to crouch lower somehow and his face contorted in concentration --  
  
His digivice flared suddenly and an enormous wave of dark energy poured from the D-3, straight towards the Chosen! They grabbed their tired Digimon and dove or ran away from the beam, all of them getting out of the way of the attack in time... except for Takeru, who didn't quite move fast enough. The beam caught the edge of his left leg and spun him around, slamming into Hikari who also fell over and they ended up in a tangled heap, Takeru screaming.  
  
"Everyone okay?!" Daisuke yelled from his back.  
  
"Fine!" Miyako shouted, spitting out a faceful of sand.  
  
"Still going," Iori said calmly. He had simply somersaulted out of the way, carrying Armadillomon with him.  
  
"Felt better!" Hikari yelled from under Takeru.  
  
"Aah..." Takeru groaned. "I'll be alright."  
  
"Hah!" Daisuke shouted. "Your great attack didn't do a thing!" He pulled himself to his feet, glancing around to make sure everyone else was getting up. Miyako rose carefully, intending on paying him back for that, and stopped cold at the sight of him laughing softly.  
  
"You miss the point, Chosen..." he chuckled. "That wasn't aimed at you." Miyako spun around, looking down the scorched and blackened path of the beam.  
  
It led right towards Kimeramon.  
  
Who was solidly glowing black, pulsing slowly with a deep humming sound.  
  
Magnamon, directly above Kimeramon still, hadn't been in the path of the beam. He stared down as Kimeramon began to glow white underneath the black exterior. "What..." he managed to say, before the glowing Kimeramon somehow blasted out in all directions. He was pushed up somewhat before he regained control of himself; the Chosen weren't as lucky and were tossed like dolls around the landscape, coming down hard some six or seven feet away from where they'd been standing, their Digimon falling on top of them as they went. The Emperor fell hard, knocked over by the sudden blast of power coming from Kimeramon.  
  
"Look at Kimeramon!" Miyako shrieked from her new position on the ground. "He's healing himself!"  
  
Meanwhile, the formerly stricken Digimon got to his feet once more, armor repaired and flesh knitted anew. The glow didn't fade, however; in fact, it got stronger. Amidst the screaming from the Chosen and their Digimon came another hissing, confusing sound. It was the sound of data reconfiguring itself. The glow surrounding Kimeramon became stronger, then encompassed his entire being and grew outwards in all directions, as the sound of data being altered became steadily louder...  
  
"He's not healing himself," Hikari said, horror awakening on her face. "He's Digevolving!"  
  
The glow, apparently not satisfied with slow expansion, suddenly exploded in all directions. It shaped itself into a vast draconic creature, with twin cannons at its shoulders, and it was built roughly like Machinedramon of old; except that this creature was fully alive. It didn't have any metallic parts other than the cannons. Rather, it was composed of solid scales and draconic fur, colored solid black. As it expanded it continued to grow, to where it was larger than even the giant VenomMyotismon that Hikari and Takeru had seen. Finally it finished growing and changing; it was huge and black and obviously dangerous.  
  
In a voice like grinding gears, it bellowed triumphantly, "Kimeramon digevolve to... Milleniumon!"  
  
Everything became quiet after its proclamation as the demon looked around itself at the huddled team, radiating menace and a black hatred that made them all sick. The Chosen could only stare at the enormous monster; their partners whimpered a bit and clung to them. Daisuke's Magnamon flew down and landed, stumbling onto one knee while looking up... and up... and up at the towering black Digimon. Miyako's gut clenched rather tightly and, dropping to her knees, she had to fight off the urge to vomit; beside her, Hikari made a choking sound. "It looks just like Apocalymon did..." she whispered, terrified. Takeru placed an arm around her and she collapsed into it, sobbing quietly. Iori looked down, unwilling to meet the eyes of the monster, taking stock of Armadillomon and the other Digimon as he did so. The Emperor got up about halfway and stopped dead, still on his butt, looking at his new creation with a dumbstruck expression of dawning comprehension and horror on his face. Daisuke did none of these things.  
  
Daisuke looked up and Milleniumon glared down at him... and for him and the monster, time froze.  
  
Dimly, Miyako became aware the face-off between the Chosen and Milleniumon. Neither of the two had moved; rather, they were as still as statues, neither blinking or realizing that they were being stared at. Hikari got herself under control, still holding a pale Takeru as she did so. Iori stroked Armadillomon's back and Hawkmon's head, calming the frenzied Digimon down somewhat as he looked up at the confrontation. "What's he doing?" Iori asked Miyako.  
  
"I don't know," she answered him. "I don't know."  
  
She didn't know, but Daisuke certainly did. He broke the staring off and started forward, towards the enormous monster, joined by a risen Magnamon on the way. "What are you doing?!" Takeru yelled frantically. "You'll be killed for sure!" Across the way, the Emperor regained his feet and looked at the giant monster with a blank expression.  
  
Then Daisuke spoke. He wasn't very loud, but they could all hear him. "Get out of here, guys."  
  
"What?!" Hikari shrieked. "Why?!"  
  
Daisuke held one finger up to Milleniumon, then spun around. An amused grunt came from Milleniumon; the deep vibrations shook the ground. "You guys have gotta get outta here! Go! Run for a TV and and get back home!"  
  
"We're not leaving you!" Iori shouted.  
  
"You have to!" he yelled in response, ignoring the dismayed looks on their faces. "Your Digimon are all too beaten to fight back!" Miyako looked down at the damaged Hawkmon in her arms, realizing that he was right. "And Takeru..." Daisuke nodded towards Hikari, who looked on, too stunned to say anything, mouth opened slightly. "Watch her."  
  
The Child of Hope found that he couldn't say anything to that. Miyako could only watch, petrified and sobbing, as Magnamon patted Daisuke once on the back, who turned back around and faced the giant Milleniumon. Cocking its massive head to the side, Milleniumon lifted a claw and spoke again. "Have you finished?" His voice still shook the area  
  
Daisuke nodded once.  
  
"I have not," the monster pronounced. "There are too many non- combatants in the area."  
  
With that, his two shoulder cannons tilted up and clicked into place. Magnamon moved, trying to get in the way, but he was an ace too slow -- "Culling the Weak!" Milleniumon roared, and the cannons went off with a pair of earth-shattering blasts. The shots arced over Magnamon's head and hurtled down... straight towards the Chosen. As one they dived away from the shots; but there wasn't any "getting away" from Milleniumon's attack. The twin blasts struck the ground and detonated into a pair of shockwaves that scattered the Chosen like tenpins, tossing them to the ground some fifteen feet away.  
  
Miyako rolled when she landed, bumping into a fuzzy something as she kept going. Pulling herself to her knees, she glanced at what she had hit... only to find Hawkmon there, feathers scorched and torn. Something was wrong with him but she didn't know what it was, couldn't tell just by a glance. She rolled him onto his back, looking at the loyal Digimon's tired face, tears streaming down her cheeks. "Hawkmon!" she sobbed, pulling his head into her arms. "Speak to me!"  
  
The Digimon's beak opened. "Don't cry, Miyako..." he said weakly. "Just go." With that, his head leaned back and his beak opened somewhat wider, and he seemed to collapse inside. Miyako cried out in horrified grief as her loyal Digimon, Hawkmon, dissolved in her arms, starting from his blackened wings and damaged claws and ending with his fallen head. The stream of data he made drifted about fifteen feet into the air before becoming too diffuse to see. His signature feather, formerly pinned to his forehead, did not fall apart; instead it drifted to the ground, and the slight puff it made resounded like a gong in her head.  
  
Screaming, she backed away on hands and knees... and turned around, running for the nearest TV. She wasn't aware of it, but Iori had joined her, then Takeru and Hikari supporting each other, arms linked. Later, when they'd recovered enough to try and talk about what had happened, she found that the others had lost their Digimon as well, but that didn't matter much to her. Right then, however, she had simply dived for the TV, trying to run from all of the pain. It appeared before her, a welcome and needed escape but never a way to forget. The TV expanded for her D-3, opening a path to the real world --  
  
****  
  
And Miyako woke up.  
  
She shook a bit. Of course she had used to have nightmares that covered what she had just seen, but never at that detail level. She'd never, not even in her darkest nights, had that kind of total recall, and it frightened her. Eventually, she realized that she wasn't inside a Odaiba Group stasis chamber, and she looked around.  
  
She herself was laid back on a mildly comfortable bed, clad in some kind of flowing robe, and without her glasses on; everything was fuzzy. The room smelled of stonework and felt cool and slightly damp; she could hear, some distance away, the sound of footsteps against rock. A blob on her right side moved, sliding something over her face and eyes, and everything coalesced into perfect shapes.  
  
She was in some kind of room, ornately designed and carved entirely from rock. She was indeed on a bed, but a small one, one that her legs almost hung over the edge. Her shoulder didn't hurt a bit; she tentatively reached up a hand, feeling the area where Gatomon sliced her, and realized that there wasn't even a red spot where once she had felt such lancing pain that it had overwhelmed her. Confused, she looked at herself. She was dressed in a robe that was marked with some kind of symbols; and even as she stared at them in confusion, trying to dredge the symbols up from his tired memory, the blob next to her -- a tall person clad in a robe cut to the same design as hers, but with a full hood that concealed his or her facial features -- suddenly spoke.  
  
"Those symbols are the sigils of Love and Sincerity." Abruptly, her cloudy mind snapped into focus and confirmed that particular observation. "I thought they'd be appropriate," the man added, as an afterthought.  
  
"Who are you?" she asked. The voice sounded mildly familiar but she couldn't place it to a face.  
  
"The people here call me the Keeper, and I go by that name now," he responded, with a hint of amusement in his voice. "You're Miyako Inuoe, right?"  
  
She nodded and he leaned back, obviously contemplating something. Presently he moved forward and said, "A long time ago, you used to go to a place called the Digital World, right?"  
  
"Yes," she said, retreating into the robe somewhat. "How did you know?"  
  
"You're something of a legend here, you and the others," he said vaguely, waving a bronzed hand. "There's a lot of interest in Chosen stuff right now."  
  
"Oh," she replied. "What... what happened to my shoulder?" she asked, afraid of the answer.  
  
"Oh, that?" he replied. "We took care of that when you got here. It was pretty easy to fix, but the medicine that we used probably didn't do anything for your mental health. It can make people come up with some pretty crazy stuff. You didn't look like you were sleeping too well. Wanna talk about it?" He put his hands on the mild wrinkles where his knees must have been.  
  
"Not really," she said faintly, and looked away from the hooded visage of the Keeper. "I don't really like to think about that part of my life."  
  
"Okay." He got up, letting the robe cascade around him. "It's a bit too early for you to be up and about yet, but by tomorrow night we'll be sending you out. Can't keep you here, you know? Not enough food to go around. You're in a monastary of sorts, by the way. We all call it the Chamber." She nodded once, absorbing most of what the Keeper had said.  
  
"This might sound like a stupid question, but..." Miyako trailed off. The Keeper turned around, looking at her; somehow, despite the hood, she could tell he was giving her permission. "Where exactly am I, anyway?"  
  
"You, Miyako, are the first human to make it here in almost seven years," he said quietly. "Welcome back to the Digital World."  
  
****  
  
"Ah, Takeru," the President said. "It's so good of you to drop by like this." The President was in his office on the top floor of the Odaiba Group building, and at his usual post behind his desk, which was covered with reports on the morning's unusual festivities. Takeru was currently ahead of him, dressed in prisoner fatigues and a headband, being held there by a pair of unusually large Odaiba employees, ones that happened to be carrying stunning weapons and massive chips on their shoulders, if their grips on him were anything to judge by. "Let him go, gentlemen, and head downstairs. I daresay I can handle myself."  
  
The two walking tanks released Takeru and somehow crowded into the elevator; it shot downwards. The President picked himself up out of the chair and stuck out a hand. "I don't believe that we've been properly aquainted, Takeru. You can call me the President." Takeru did not take his hand, instead glaring at him. The President chuckled. "Let's take a walk. Perhaps when I show you what I've been working on you'll be a bit more agreeable."  
  
With that, he started towards the elevator, which had returned up its chute. Takeru followed him after a moment's pause. The door pinged as it closed and the two men shot downwards. "Now, I understand that you've been writing some things that aren't exactly complimentary of my company," the President started. Takeru smirked slightly but didn't respond. "Well, I'm here to tell you that you're right."  
  
That was too much; Takeru couldn't hold his tongue any longer. "What?!" he blurted. "You're admitting it?"  
  
"Hardly. I'm acknowledging it, which is completely different."  
  
"Why?" Takeru asked, flabbergasted. "Why did you create those ED reactors? Why are you putting them everywhere?"  
  
The doors pinged again as they arrived, and they strode down a long hallway slowly. "I'm selling these devices for two reasons. First off," the President ticked his left index finger down, "humanity really did need an alternate energy source. At the rate that we were burning fossil fuels we would have inflicted irreparable harm onto our planet's atmosphere; we'd have all been cooked by the sun in less than ten years. But that's only a supplementary reason why. The real reason," and the President ticked off his middle finger, "has to do with the Digital World."  
  
"What about it?" Takeru asked, suddenly pale.  
  
"The Emperor will eventually finish what he started there, and once terrorizing the Digital World with his creations sates him no longer, he will turn his attentions here." That was not exactly what Takeru wanted to hear and it caused him to drop another shade. The President continued: "I'd rather be prepared for what he sends through any Gate that he creates instead of simply reacting all the time to what he could bring across. As such I required a large amount of power in my care." Reaching the end of the hallway, he motioned briefly at a small, metallic device at the left side of the door. "That's why I have forced the ED reactors to perform at such a high rate. Truth to tell, they don't need to pull very much power from humans at all -- they're extremely efficient -- but I needed the storeway that I have accumulated." The door beeped its affirmation and opened to show Takeru --  
  
An enormous bowl, three stories tall, shining brightly with energy inside of it. He stopped dead at the door, mesmerized by its eerie beauty, and the President waited for him quietly inside the room. Takeru held up his hands; the light released by the energy played across them, his skin, his prison uniform. He laughed a bit, struck by the marvel of it.  
  
"You see," the President said, "I'm sure we have enough energy to deal with the Emperor's more... exotic creations."  
  
"Wow," Takeru breathed, watching the play of the light. "You sure do... I don't think that even Milleniumon could stand up to all this."  
  
"Precisely," the President smiled grimly. "There's just one problem."  
  
"Oh?" Takeru turned, looking at the President.  
  
"We need a way to channel this power. Right now, it's all raw potential -- sure, it can make lots of light, but that's about it. Right now we need a way to use it as a weapon, a way to turn it against Milleniumon or whatever else the Emperor chooses to send through the gate. That's where you Chosen come in."  
  
Now Takeru found himself quite confused. "I don't get it," he said. "Why do you need us?"  
  
"It's simple," the President explained. "You're all gifted with the ability to channel and focus energy. You did it every time you helped your Digimon to Digevolve up to another level and some other times as well, like when you slew Myotismon. As such, you're the ideal tools to cut down the Emperor's monsters with."  
  
"Whoa," Takeru marveled, a hopeful expression blooming on his face. "I'd be glad to--"  
  
"Don't make your decision now," the President admonished, holding up a hand. "Talk about it with the others, and then choose. This is a very demanding thing that I'm asking you to do. It could very well hurt you for years to come." Takeru nodded slowly. The President snapped and somehow the two walking tanks reappeared, but they merely stood at Takeru's side rather than gripped his shoulders. "Talk to the others as well. Some of them resent me more than even you do, such as Iori does. Now, go."  
  
Takeru walked out of the room, a new bounce in his step and the tanks hanging slightly back behind him. The President watched him go.  
  
Another person stepped up besides the President. "How did it go?" she purred out.  
  
The President glanced down at Gatomon, frowning. "He bought it hook, line, and sinker. Frankly, I expected more from somebody with his writing talent, but I suppose that being the Chosen of Hope can make a person somewhat gullible. What on earth are you so satisfied about?"  
  
"Oh..." Gatomon trailed off, tail curling around her gloved left paw. "Nothing much."  
  
"Hmm. Would this have anything to do with the damage meted out to Koushiro's lab?" The President was no longer frowning but nor was he smiling. "That boy hasn't left the maintenance people alone in hours. He's brilliant, but not exactly sociable."  
  
"It might," Gatomon said cattily. "I had a run-in with Miyako in there."  
  
"Ah," the President replied dryly, raising an eyebrow. "Of course. How did you like your taste of revenge?"  
  
"More than I thought," Gatomon said, smirking.  
  
"I'm not so sure that taking such pleasure in revenge is quite ideal for a Digimon such as yourself. Perhaps you should be focusing on the future, rather than dwelling in the past." The President looked down at his watch. "In preperation for that very future we need you to get the other Chosen prepped."  
  
"What about Sincerity?" Gatomon asked.  
  
"Don't worry about that," the President replied. "I'm taking care of that myself. Seeing as she's already all but ready, after all; it won't take more than a little shove to get her where we need her to be."  
  
Gatomon trod off, apparently satisfied in her questioning. The President watched her go, mouth slowly twisting upwards. "Yes, Gatomon," he murmered quietly, "how do you like revenge? Personally, I have found it to be music for my soul." 


	7. Road Trip

PAUSE FOR BOURGEOIS LEGALITIES "Digimon" and all characters and situations contained within are copyrighted trademarks of Bandai, Saban Entertainment and Upper Deck. Permission is hereby granted by the author to reproduce this document unless you try to make money off of it; if so, please contact me first at Calcite_McWhalen@hotmail.com. I may be a grown-up cartoon fan but I do know my way around Title 17.  
  
****  
  
Road Trip  
  
****  
  
Tired. That's what Jyou Kido would call it; he was tired. It wasn't just the long day at work, although that was a factor. He'd been at work patching up people injured in the escapee rush from that morning. The worst case was an unfortunate secretary who'd been in the wrong place at the wrong time; she'd ended up with a cracked rib. Nothing beyond his capacity, to be sure, but there were enough cases to keep him busy until well into the afternoon.  
  
He leaned back in his chair, savoring a moment of peace in the busy day, and relaxed his lean frame. His blue hair hung limply; he'd intended to do something with it but when Miyako sent him the e-mail that morning he'd forgotton all about the simple things in his life and immediately gravitated on what she'd asked him to do. Lying to the President wasn't a difficult thing for even Jyou Kido but this request boded ill for the rest of the world. Save them all being killed, Jyou couldn't imagine a worse scenario for the insurrection that Miyako led. Even for one with resourceful people like Iori and Hikari and Takeru in it. He was glad that they had managed to escape -- the people on the scene insisted that they had all made it out -- but he was pretty sure that this rebellion was over for now.  
  
It was one his own friends had managed to stifle.  
  
Jyou's mind wandered down well-traveled roads. His old friends had all found their way here, to the Odaiba Group. He'd been watching from the sidelines, always available for a chat and coffee, as his former partners in defending the Digital World from anything that could threaten it lost the battles against themselves. Taichi had been the hardest to watch because of how slow it had been; the enthusiastic Yagami had, slowly, simply changed for the worse. There hadn't been any major point that Jyou could point to and blame. Koushiro had been the second hardest to watch because of how fast it was. Almost overnight, he'd changed from the intelligent and witty person he'd been to... to what they all were, now.  
  
They'd become shadows of their former selves, all of them. Jyou's mouth turned down in a frown -- a usual expression, these days -- and he shook his head as he thought over what they were, these days. After their adventures in the Digital World, Yamato had become something of a people person, but now that was almost surpressed down to nothing; it took a mighty force of will that made him look a person in the eyes, let alone talk to them about anything other than business. Sora, on the other hand, had been a caring and compassionate -- maybe even loving -- person back when he'd been a miser in the Digital World. These days she'd be able to shoot her own best friend and not bat an eye. Somewhere along the line she'd lost whatever it was that drove her to care about people. And Jyou hadn't seen Mimi for years. She was the only one that didn't work at the Odaiba Group.  
  
As for himself, well, he watched over them all and cursed his helplessness to do something. Sure, he'd patched them up and tried to keep them on the straight and narrow, but they didn't exactly make his job any easier. The whole reason he'd joined the Odaiba Group as a medical expert and supervisor was to keep an eye on the old gang. He'd failed, and miserably at that. He couldn't even save them from themselves. Not only that, but he also had a gut feeling that the President had some design for them as well.  
  
Almost involuntarily his left hand flexed itself into a fist and clenched itself. The President had conducted Jyou's interview himself. He'd even invited two of his Assistants along for the questioning. The two of them -- one slim woman in a dark red dress, the other a giant man in a solid blue Armani suit -- had unsettled him enough with a set of intent and unnerving stares, but it was the President who had made Jyou nervous. The President, innocuous in a normal business suit, had directed the questioning with a efficiency that would have impressed professional interviewers but something about him had set Jyou on edge.  
  
He'd been holding something back.  
  
Jyou didn't have a whole lot in the way of empathic skills but he'd had to deal with all of his old gang lying to him back in the Digital World and had learned to sense when something was going unsaid. The President had, in his relaxed stance and carefully modulated tones and businesslike gaze, set off a quiet alarm in the back of Jyou's mind. Jyou believed that idea even more when he was hired in less than a day. That was almost unheard of and it spoke of either desperation or calculation, and the Odaiba Group couldn't have had a shortage of doctors. It was true, though, that Jyou had been quite busy, so that even a herd of refugees barely rated a mild blip on his scale.  
  
Much of his work now was paper-pushing and talking to frazzled employees; actually being a doctor was a tad unusual, but the pressure more than made up for that. He had never had to fire an employee and for that he was thankful. The job was beginning to chip away at him, though. Jyou let his legs relax and he snapped back into a ready position. His nights had been getting worse. He didn't sleep much anymore at night and what sleep he got was fitful and restless. Clinically, he knew exactly what the problem was. His fellow doctors would refer to it as stress.  
  
His eyes, ever at attention behind their eyelids, narrowed somewhat. That was exactly the problem. Between watching the first generation Chosen, taking care of a normal administration job, and trying to help out Miyako's little revolution, he'd been carrying too many burdens these days. Blackly, he knew that he epitomized his crest, Reliability. Sometimes he cursed his fate for being the one with the long-suffering crest. He was weary beyond measure, very much alone, and growing more angry at fate for turning things out the way it did, where he had to work for a bloodsucking corporation that rather than devour people's money and leave it at that had decided to take all of their energy, too, just for kicks.  
  
He was tired!  
  
Yelling unintelligibly, he swept his hand across his ever-covered desk, sending all of the crap on it to the ground with a mismatched crash. He heard the tinkle of glass and, bending over, scooped up the group picture of the Chosen from the ground. Shaking hands holding the frame steady, he glared at the cheerful photo. Everyone was so happy in the picture, but that, along with everything he had fought for, was in the past, wasn't it? He dropped the picture onto the desk, making a resounding crash in his own mind, and strode out of the office.  
  
A secretary outside glanced up, startled at the loud crash of Jyou Kido slamming his door open, a tired and resentful expression on his face. "Mr. Kido?" he asked uncertainly.  
  
"Hold my calls," Jyou snarled, and walked over to the elevator shaft in the corner. Jyou's offices and the medical quarters, inexplicably, were on the sixty-ninth floor. He didn't understand why when it was designed and now, more than four years later, he still didn't get it. The elevator button was the unfortunate victim of a smashing blow as Jyou demanded the car's undivided attention. When it arrived less than five seconds later he jumped on board and delivered a strong blow to the UP button. Obligingly the elevator ascended and less than ten seconds later Jyou Kido entered the office of the President of the Odaiba Group.  
  
The President was leaning up alongside his desk, chatting amicably into a phone as Jyou entered. The office was otherwise abandoned. "Yeah, I definitely need those tickets for tonight Keep in mind that I also require a backstage pass... Of course she'll approve. I fund these concerts, remember?" It was about then that the President noticed Jyou had entered. He held up a finger; against his more savage feelings Jyou complied with the President's unspoken request, waiting at the elevator shaft. "No, I don't want to say anything... Exactly. Appreciation, indeed... Great. How about, say, half an hour?.... Good." The President set the phone down. Walking over to Jyou he extended a hand, one that Jyou took with a bit of reluctance. "What can I do for you, Mr. Kido?"  
  
Withdrawing his hand, Jyou answered, "Well, sir, right now I've decided that I need a vacation of some sort." That admission came out with an enormous sense of relief behind it. The President cocked his head to the side, surprised.  
  
"You don't have to ask me for that," he said. "You can always go to your vice president and get your time scheduled."  
  
"I decided that coming directly to you would be easier," Jyou lied smoothly. In all fairness, he hadn't even considered going anywhere else. "It'd help avoid the red tape."  
  
The President nodded. "I know exactly what you mean, Kido," he said, and sat down behind his chair. He punched a few numbers into his keyboard while motioning to one of the chairs before him. Jyou sat down. The President reviewed the information on the screen; presently, he drew back surprised. "Mr. Kido, you have violated company policy. It reads here that you've logged almost four months in unused vacation time." He raised an eyebrow. "You know I don't stand for people burning themselves out. I give my employees almost a month in vacation time a year. Why haven't you taken one before?"  
  
"I couldn't abandon my responsibilities," Jyou answered truthfully.  
  
"Indeed," the President replied thoughtfully, raising an eyebrow. "I can... understand that sentiment, especially coming from you, Mr. Kido." Confused, Jyou didn't respond. "Well, considering your immaculate service record, your careful and accurate work, and your obvious need for one, I don't see how I can refuse."  
  
Jyou's eyes widened somewhat and he leaned out of his seat. "Just like that?"  
  
"Just like that," the President nodded gravely. "It doesn't take much, you know. Take a month and hit the beaches over in Hawaii or climb a mountain somewhere. Just try to not think about anything happening here." He pressed a button on his console. "There's another nine hundred employees here. They can handle any kind of problem that we have."  
  
Jyou sat down again, hard. "I guess so," he said slowly. The elevator beeped its arrival and one of the President's Assistants stepped out of the car; it was the woman. She walked over to the desk and to Jyou.  
  
The President motioned to her. "She'll take care of what little bureaucracy you'll have to deal with before you can go, such as pay and logging someone to fill your time out." Jyou stood up shakily. He was still trying to grasp what had just happened. "You don't have to be responsible all of the time, Kido, that's what the rest of us are here for," the President said, chuckling. "Now get out of here and go have fun." Shaking his head slightly, Jyou walked towards the elevator with the Assistant at his shoulder.  
  
He waited a five-count before glancing down at the shortest of his Assistants. "I take it you have something to say?"  
  
"Of course," Gatomon replied, licking one paw. "I thought that we were collecting Chosen, not letting them roam freely."  
  
"We are, after a sort," the President replied.  
  
"Jyou Kido's the best model for the Reliability crest that you'll find. He's far better than Iori Hida at that sort of thing," Gatomon fired back, rubbing one ear.  
  
"Precisely," the President replied smugly, sitting down again. "I see you still haven't figured it out." It was something of a game between the two of them. Gatomon would try and figure out exactly what the President was up to, and if she ever guessed the gist of it he'd give her the entire story behind himself. Being a cat, she couldn't resist that sort of thing. She'd been working on the puzzle for almost four years now. Inwardly, the President smirked. He knew that her own blindspots would keep her from guessing, and judging by the mystified look on Gatomon's face, he was right.  
  
"Okay..." she said, trying to process what it meant. "At any rate, you're out a Reliability chosen for a month or so. When Jyou puts his mind to something, he doesn't stop until it's very finished."  
  
"I'd guessed as much," he said dryly. "You'd better get ready to set up shop here again. Your reactions allowed us to capture most of the second team of Chosen; now, you'll be doing something much more menial."  
  
"Only the company?" Gatomon said indignantly. Only her eyes gave away her amused demeanor.  
  
"I'd give you more if I had it," he responded. "Since you disposed of Miyako I'm going to have to recruit the other Sincerity representative."  
  
"How long?" she asked, curling her tail around her midsection and uncurling it.  
  
"Not very," he answered. "No more than two days, depending on aerial traffic. I can't predict that."  
  
"Hmm..." Gatomon murmered, then grinned and shot back, "Don't be late, or I'll have to start the treatments on our newest arrivals."  
  
Both of the President's eyebrows went up. "Gatomon, please. There's no need to take such pleasure in that. Besides, you're not starting without me to oversee the process. All you have to do is make sure that they don't escape." He stood and strode out towards the one door in the place, a sliding glass pane that lead to a staircase to the building's roof. "Keep the peace here and you may be able to assist me with my project," the President said and walked outside, climbing the stairs to his personal helicoptor.  
  
Briefly he paused underneath the swirling rotors, the wind rippling his jacket and hair, thinking of Gatomon. "You've certainly come a long way, haven't you?" he murmured to himself, and boarded the helicoptor.  
  
****  
  
Again, Miyako woke up in that strange place.  
  
Putting on her glasses, she looked around the room. Seeing nobody there, she got up and stretched. She hadn't slept too well, of course, but that was to be expected once she found out that she was back in the Digital World. It forced memories, both good and bad, to surface from well-buried chambers in her mind. This night's particular dream was of the time when she had charged directly at the Emperor's base, rather than wait for the others; in her mind's version things went south pretty fast and it ended with Milleniumon with a foot raised, coming down on top of her... She surpressed a shudder and examined herself quickly. The robe was still on and she took a moment to examine the sigils placed on it; one a stylized heart, the other a pair of circles inside a teardrop. The moment passed and Miyako, finding the door unlocked, stole out quietly into the hall.  
  
The place wasn't much more to look at on the outside. It was all stonework and cavern, with the occasional wooden door. Again, there was nobody out in the hall, and Miyako had a vague feeling of uncertainty; she knew that there had been several people with her yesterday as well as the Keeper guy. Rubbing the place where her shoulder should have been bleeding she kept going down the hall, keeping to the side, and hit a large open area with, of all things, a lake in the middle. An enormous hole was carved into the ceiling and Miyako could see the faintest hint of stars shining down from up there, into the cavern she was in. The area was lit with some kind of moss growing from the walls that could glow; phosphorence, her mind reminded her. Over near one such patch of moss was the person she had seen earlier -- the Keeper. He was staring up at the stars and there was one of the others at his side.  
  
Miyako approached the couple warily. The Keeper's hood had been down but, upon seeing her, he hurriedly threw it back over his head. She hadn't gotten a good look at him before he got it up. His companion, however, hadn't had her hood up and made no effort to cover her head; she had snow- white skin and purple-streaked white hair with pointed ears and, curiously, a single purple dot in the middle of her forehead. She turned as Miyako approached and said, "Feeling any better?" in a voice like a wind chime -- all high pitches without a trace of alto in her sound.  
  
"Somewhat," Miyako said carefully. "What do you want from me?"  
  
The Keeper turned to her and said, "Not much. You pretty much fell on top of us so we're not quite sure what do to." He shrugged. "I figured that you'd want to see the Digital World again so I sent for an Airdramon from the Capital. It'll be here soon."  
  
Miyako's eye twitched. Airdramon were serpentile, creepy-looking flyers that the Emperor had always employed to move around; and if this Keeper guy got one from some place named Capital... "I'm sure the Emperor's quite pleased with you," she bit out sarcastically.  
  
The girl next to her glanced up sharply, but the Keeper waved what she was going to say down. "You won't be seeing the Emperor," he replied evenly. "You might say that he's out of town."  
  
Miyako rolled her eyes at the two of them. "Right. So when's my ride get here?"  
  
"Not until you get changed," the girl said, looking at the robe critically. "You'll need to wear something else when you ride an Airdramon." Beside her, the Keeper nodded silently. "You'll find a change of clothes into the outfit you used to wear in the room you were in, along with what your age requires. They're all sized for you."  
  
"Fantastic," Miyako said blandly, and stood up. Without another word she turned and headed back to the room she was in; sure enough, the clothing she was looking for was right where the purple-haired elf thing had said it would be. It took her a minute to struggle out of the robe and into the outfit, but when she was done, she felt a little better for it. She discarded the helmet, though. That would have been a bit too much.  
  
Back outside, she looked around; the Keeper was nowhere to be seen, but that little elf thing was still over where it had been. Miyako walked over to her and said, "Just what are you, anyway?"  
  
"I'm a Migotomon," the girl responded. "We've moved in here to help the Keeper take care of things. The Keeper named me Bishojo a long time ago, and I've stuck with it ever since." She pulled out a vial of some liquid from a pocket in her robe. Extending it to Miyako, she said, "Here. This is extracted Essence of Light and is the most powerful curative in the Digital World. We used it on your shoulder. If you get hurt, put a few drops into the wound and it'll close up. Be careful, though, because you'll have some pretty intense dreams the next time you sleep."  
  
Hesitantly, Miyako took the vial, remembering what it had apparently done to her the night before. "Uh... thanks, I think." A touch of wind caressed the back of her neck and she put a hand there unconsciously.  
  
Bishojo glanced up and motioned. "Your ride's here."  
  
Miyako spun around, nearly dropping the vial, and almost fell over when she saw the Airdramon. She hadn't ever seen one from up close before; the only time she had seen the things was when the Emperor had been flying on one and, quite suddenly, one was almost in her face. It wasn't the most attractive thing either, with a leering snarl permanently pasted on its skull-like visage and no arms or legs -- merely one long torso that stretched into a tail and a pair of huge leathery wings. She managed to keep from screaming, straightened up, and climbed onto its back when it presented itself. Surprisingly there was a human-sized saddle on the back of the creature.  
  
She was barely seated when the Airdramon took to the skies with a low keen and a strong pull upwards. It took them several seconds to get clear of the cavern, but once that was cleared, they were off like a shot, Miyako unable to restrain a startled squawk, grabbing tightly to the reins placed at the saddle. The sky was still quite dark, but it was warmer than she had expected, and the giant Airdramon's head was well-placed for keeping the wind off of her as the two soared away. Quickly the landmass that the Chamber was on fell behind them and Miyako saw that it was on a small island; the two of them flew off over rippling seas.  
  
About an hour later the sun began to break over the horizon. Miyako had been letting her mind wander, not focusing on anything, but her mind solidified when the first hint of daybreak came up over the edge of the sea. It was... beautiful! It painted the already-colorful digital sky in waves of red, yellow, and oranges, dabbing bits of pink on the edge of the rays and deepening to a blinding white in the center. It had been a long time since Miyako had taken the time to watch a sunrise -- since before the malfunctioning ED reactor at home -- and its raw beauty held her spellbound. That is, until the sun itself cleared the edge. It proved to be almost incandescent white and she had to turn her eyes away from it or be blinded. It took her several minutes before her eyes adjusted to how bright the Digital World was getting.  
  
Shaking her head a bit to clear out the last cobwebs, Miyako wondered why it was so bright... that is, until she chanced to look down at the ocean, no more than a hundred feet below her and the Airdramon. She stared in wonder; in all her life she had never been able to see clearer water. It seemed that she could see down, and down, and down deeper than she could even swim. Not only that, but she could see shapes, too -- a school of Betamon were swirling around an enormous Seadramon; further over a pod of Dolphmon were celebrating the sunlight by leaping clear out of the water, flipping end over end. In the far distance, she could see the enormous back of a Whamon surfacing, spouting water out of its blowhole.  
  
She took in a long, cleansing breath at all this. "It's so beautiful..." she whispered to the sky.  
  
Beneath her, the Airdramon rumbled. "As the sun raises in the sky, so do the Digimon raise to meet the new day." It turned slightly, adjusting their course. "Do not the hu-mons also greet the sun?"  
  
Miyako shook her head, still shielding her eyes from the sun's glare. "No, we're usually all too busy for that."  
  
"Shame," the Airdramon grunted. "We're almost to shore." Miyako looked ahead of them for the first time and saw a curling edge of land, extending as far as she could see. "We land at the roadside. You must travel on the ground the rest the way to the Capital. I would carry you but for the no- fly zone surrounding the city at the moment."  
  
"That's alright," she replied, still absorbed in the world. "I think I'd rather walk, anyway."  
  
All too quickly they broke over the land, leaving the joyful seas far behind them. The Airdramon continued a little ways inland, allowing Miyako to see the calm treeline and the sight of a quaint village behind it, its Salamon inhabitants cheerfully moving about their daily chores, one waving up at the passing Airdramon and Miyako. The road came into view after that, a long meandering brown line stretching far into the distance, and there was another surprise next to it; the orange-black frame of a Centarumon stood next to it, hooves pawing the ground impatiently.  
  
"Friend Centarumon," the giant Airdramon growled. "You're early." It settled onto the ground and Miyako slid off carefully, secreting the vial away into a pants pocket.  
  
"I'ses tryin' ter get a quick start," the Centarumon said, and straightened up, presenting himself to Miyako. "Ready to go, Miss Miyako?"  
  
That was about when it slammed down on her; there was no Dark Ring on this Centarumon. Turning, she stared at the neck of Airdramon and noticed the same thing; no Dark Ring. Fighting down a odd feeling of suspicion and embarassment she waved to Airdramon. "Thanks for the ride!" she said quickly and jumped onto the Centarumon's back. Airdramon keened again, lifted into the air, and flew off slowly.  
  
Shaking slightly, she grabbed the odd reins that were again placed onto Centarumon's back and held on tight as the creature took off down the road, running smoothly down a hill and back up the next one. The wind whistled past her face sending her hair flying; she kept one hand on her glasses as Centarumon dipped his head and galloped into a forest. The sun, formerly so bright and cheery, suddenly disappeared as Miyako and Centarumon rode through the darkened forest, bursting out the other side to reveal the sun again.  
  
After a tense few moments Miyako got comfortable with the ride and was able to relax, looking around for signs of the Emperor's old Control Spires. She hadn't seen one thus far into the ride, but in all fairness she hadn't seen much in that period of time. Still, the absence of the giant black obelisks was unsettling to her; it was as if, her heart fluttered hopefully, the Emperor had simply disappeared. She tried as best she could to ignore that idea and kept looking for Spires.  
  
Apparently, the Centarumon noticed her. "What're ya lookin' fer, lady?" He jumped over a fallen log, sending Miyako for a bit of a loop. "I kin find perty much anythin' in these here woods -- they're me home, see?"  
  
Miyako responded absently, "I'm looking for Control Spires."  
  
The Centarumon did something very surprising then -- he laughed, long and loud, a joyful and open sound. "Yer not gonna find any o' them kickin' around, lady -- the Emperor's long gone!" The impossibility of that statement rang in her head, a mixture of disbelief and hope mixing themselves together and contesting for her belief, but Centarumon's follow- up shattered that particular struggle. "He got kilt by his own critter, too. Couldn't think of a better way to kill him meself."  
  
Eyes lit up, she asked, "Are you sure?"  
  
"Well, now, not exactly." Centarumon seemed to consider that even as he ran through a set of bushes and through the middle of a village. "That's what they say outta the Capita' but I'ses not always sure, ya know? People say that he made it outta the battle without getting kilt. All I know is, Regent's runnin' the place and all's fine and dandy. Heads up!" Miyako was barely able to react in time, ducking under a low-lying branch. Centarumon had to lower his torso all the way to fit. Running on down the road, Centarumon and Miyako passed a pair of Koromon on the side of the road, tossing what looked like a ball back and forth. They made welcoming sounds as the mounted pair passed them, Miyako waving hesitantly from her perch.  
  
"What does that mean?" Miyako asked him crossly. "You're not making any sense -- and who is this Regent guy, anyway?" Directly ahead of them was a medium-sized stream and she grabbed up higher on the reins, preparing for the jump ahead.  
  
"Tell ya in a moment, marm -- Hold on!" With that Centarumon gathered himself and leaped -- clearing about half of the stream. To Miyako, it seemed as if they were suspended above the glittering stream for a moment. Then, with an exultant cry from Centarumon and a more panicked one from Miyako, rider and mount plunged right into the middle of the stream, spray going in all directions. Even then Centarumon didn't slow down, plowing right through the chest-deep water and out the other side of the stream. Miyako spit out a mouthful of water. "Sorry, marm, couldn't help meself. Gettin' a wee bit warm up here, see."  
  
She shook her hair, grabbing some of it to wring out. "You better be sorry, Centarumon! This is all new stuff!"  
  
He laughed again. "Well ain't you as joyless as they come? It's a great day -- have some fun wit' it!" He broke from a gallop into a trot once they reached the top of the current hill they were on, one steeper than the others with nary a tree to speak of. "It don't matter anyway -- we made it, see?"  
  
She glanced up from her hair, intending on letting him know just how much it did matter, and stopped dead at the sight laid out before her. Down the hill from her was a vast stretch of plains that led back to the sea... but that wasn't what was important. For before her, open on all sides except for its harbor, was an enormous city. It was laid out more or less in a circular manner with several large buildings at the center of it. From here she could hear the murmur of the Digimon citizens as they went about their day; from here she could pick up on the scents as open-air cooks tossed and fried and broiled and baked; from here she could see the simple design of most of the buildings, small and circular, looking all the world like larger versions of huts. From here she could see the enormous open stadium on the left side of the city, filled with cheering Digimon as some sport was played on its grassy field. She could see clear down to the harbor on the far side of the city, with a series of Seadramon and Zudomon with rigged sitting places on their backs streaming in and out of the place. She could see a tall tower on the near side, with no entrance save for the wooden top where she could see several Biyomon and a Birdramon resting. Above all, she could see the squat building in the middle, marked with a single image: that of a single rose head, just coming out of its bud.  
  
All that she took in a single long stare, mouth still opened. Then she took a second look and saw what she had missed the first time -- there were Gotsumon and Meramon and Kunemon and Agumon and Floramon and more that she couldn't even count on the ground; there were Birdramon and Airdramon and Kuwagamon and even a horned red-white hawk Digimon she didn't recognise; there were Seadramon and Zudomon and Scorpiomon and even an enormous MetalSeadramon in the ocean -- this place was swarming with Digimon. Not only that, but they all seemed to be getting along, too.  
  
Centarumon had stopped at the top of the hill; now, he turned his torso around so that he could see Miyako. "Well? Whaddya think? Ya like our Capital?"  
  
"It's incredible," she said shakily. "I never imagined..."  
  
It was about then that things began to stop going according to plan. In the air at that moment, the horned head of Aquilamon had been searching to and fro across the city he was protecting. His support patrol of three Birdramon were doing much the same. Aquilamon hadn't expected much more than usual, and even that was proved to be a disappointment; he was on the verge of heading back to the Aviary when he chanced to glance at the west road and saw Centarumon. Now that wasn't all that unusual -- in fact, judging by his markings, this particular Centarumon lived in the area -- but it was the rider on the back that caught Aquilamon's eagle's eye. This one was roughly humanoid, lavender haired, and still, after six long years, very familiar. He made a decision.  
  
With an earsplitting cry the horned hawk dived down towards his long-lost partner.  
  
Miyako had very little time to react -- none, in fact. Centarumon was tossed to the side as the giant hawk snatched her up, yelling in surprise and fear, into his claws as easily as any fish he'd ever caught. He landed quickly, using one claw to soften his impact while dropping her onto the ground -- then snatching up the very surprised Miyako again into his wings, giving her a massive bird-sized hug. "Miyako! You've finally come back! How I've missed you..." the giant trailed off, then sobbed. "But you're back now!"  
  
Miyako struggled to pull away from the bird and succeed in doing so. "What are you?" she yelled at him.  
  
"Oh!" he said back, realizing. "You've never seen me like this before." Setting her down, he stepped back a few feet and began to glow. Miyako flinched, remembering suddenly what happened the last time a Digimon had glowed like that -- but instead of getting bigger, he instead shrank, condensing down to a small red-white hawk with a pair of red lines on his cheeks and a very familiar looking headband, tied in the front, with an equally-familiar feather in the back. The little guy then proceeded to spread his wings, turned his bright eyes on Miyako, and said, "Do you remember me now?"  
  
Miyako's heart leaped well past her throat to some point inside her brain. She sat down hard, feeling only the thumping inside, staring at someone who was supposed to be dead, had died right in front of her. "Of course I remember you, Hawkmon..." she managed to choke out, then he was running and she picked him up, collapsing back onto the grass and crying into his white crown feathers, opening the valve on six years worth of pent-up loss and sadness.  
  
****  
  
Ken shook his head, examining his D-3's tiny screen again. The morning had long since risen and Ken and Chardsy with it. Chardsy had gone off to try again and fix his car for the trip later that night. Ken, in the absence of anything to do to help out, had to find some way to spend his time, and using his D-3 to call home was better than nothing. "What do you mean?"  
  
"We're not entirely sure, Regent," Biyomon said quietly, her feathers extended slightly. She had been in the camera for the better part of the morning, reading off what had been happening in the Digital World over the last few days. "As far as Datamon's been able to tell, your D-3 / Crest method for bulling through the Seals left some kind of pathway or residue behind. Datamon says that it's collapsing in on itself and disappearing, but until then..."  
  
Ken finished for her. "Until then, we could have visitors that we'd know nothing about. Okay, then, just keep yourselves on alert and be ready to respond if something goes wrong." A massive clang resounded from below followed by Chardsy's ensuing exclamation and Ken winced a bit in sympathy.  
  
"Sure." Biyomon rustled through the other stacks of documents, finally pulling one out for closer inspection. "Um, the Keeper says that he's got something that came up but he absolutely can't relate it through any of us, can you call him at home when you get the chance, sooner rather than later?"  
  
Ken resisted the urge to roll his eyes. An old friend and ally the Keeper might have been but it was Ken's opinion that he had a penchant for overreacting to pretty much everything that came up. "Tell him I'll be able to call him after this particular chunk of research is done." He carefully picked up the device that Datamon had sent through the D-3 the night before, and put it into a large pocket. "It won't take more than a day, anyway, and I'm pretty sure the Keeper can hold on for that long."  
  
Biyomon tapped a few keys on her console. "Got it."  
  
"Anything else that I need to know?" Ken asked, listening for the sound of Chardsy working on the car. It wasn't forthcoming.  
  
"Well..." Biyomon trailed off, looking a mite too casual for Ken's liking.  
  
"Yes?" Ken prompted.  
  
"Agumon's kinda promised Palmon that he'd take her to the semifinals..."  
  
Ken raised an eyebrow. "Since when did Palmon begin to care about soccer?"  
  
"I think it was when the Dramons began their winning streak, but I'm not really sure," Biyomon said innocently. "Anyway, he's been wanting tonight off to, you know, take her on out to the game."  
  
Ken's other eyebrow went up. "Oh really?" He made a show of thinking it over, watching Biyomon's pink feathers slowly turn red, and finally came to a 'decision'. "I don't see the harm. Fine then. Call in Piedmon and have him keep an eye on things, but make sure he's clear on the extent of his authority. Who's playing tonight?"  
  
Biyomon's odd redness was replaced almost immediately with a very happy look, and she set to tapping keys with a flourish. "Great! Uh, I think it's the East Server Floras against the... uh... Infinity Crags."  
  
Ken smirked. "Kiss the Floras good-bye. Their playoff run's just run out of steam. There's no way that the Floras can take Leomon's Crags."  
  
Biyomon looked completely befuddled. "Uh, okay, if you say so. Anyway, I'll tell Palmon the good news! Thanks, Regent!"  
  
"I thought you said that Agumon requested the night off," he remarked offhandedly. "Why don't you put him on and let me talk to him?" Biyomon's face suddenly turned red again and her beak opened slightly as the weight of what she had given away suddenly crashed down on her. Ken let her stay there like that for a moment, then said, "On second thought, I really don't need to talk to Agumon. Tell him to have a good night out, and can you put Stingmon on?"  
  
Biyomon's face turned sour. "Ken... you... you didn't need to do that!" she huffed, and called Stingmon over out of the background. As Stingmon approached Chardsy reappeared at his door, hands painted black by oil.  
  
"Hey, Ken? We don't gotta ride for tonight -- the car just dropped the goddamned transmission." He looked disgusted with himself. "I'd get it fixed but I can't just pull a new trannie outta thin air, man. Got any ideas?" He sat down on a nearby chair.  
  
"Blast," Ken said, shaking his head. As he did he happened to glance at that Gardening Sincerity cutout, and something about the girl on it tugged at him again... He leaned back, thinking hard. "I think I can make something work," he said distantly. He had an idea, all right; he'd been nursing it ever since Chardsy had been outside. He knew that they'd be more than willing to help him, it was just the matter of finding them in time... "Tell you what -- you go get cleaned up and ready and I'll handle getting us a ride."  
  
Chardsy's expression told Ken what he thought of that idea. "Dude, what the hell are you gonna do about getting a car? You don't know jack about it."  
  
"I'm not getting a car," Ken said evenly. "I'm getting a ride, and a better one than a car." Chardsy shook his head and went into the back, and soon enough Ken heard the sound of running water.  
  
"Regent?" a tinny voice sounded. Ken looked down and finally noticed that Stingmon had made it to the camera station, and had been there for a moment. "Are you there?"  
  
"Yeah, I'm here," Ken responded sheepishly. "How long have you been there?"  
  
"Oh, just a few seconds. Don't worry about it. What do you need?" Stingmon gave a close approximation of a shrug as he talked, rolling his shoulders up so much that the studded shoulder pads he wore actually moved somewhat.  
  
"I need for you to contact a few individuals for me."  
  
A few minutes later Chardsy emerged from the shower, relaxed again off of the hot water. It was always his biggest soothing moment but he absolutely refused to take it for granted, reveling in every minute of heat upon his tired body, relaxing his nerves. Toweling off, he tossed his new change back on -- something he had picked out long ago for the concert -- and walked out into his living room nervously. He'd left that Ken guy out there to do whatever it was he was going to do and damn but that made Chardsy nervous. Ruler or whatever of the Digital World and all that aside, there was something not quite right about his new houseguest. But even those suspicions hadn't prepared Chardsy for what awaited him when he came out; Ken was there, all right, but...  
  
But Ken had invited friends. Sitting against his couch, yapping happily with the indigo-haired ruler dude, was a little blue lizard-dragon thing. It had a tail, and a horn, and odd markings on its forehead and talked with a slight lisp. On the other side of Ken was a furry animal of some sort, with long ears and a striped blue back. A single large horn protruded from its forehead. Rather than interrupt the conversation this little guy was quite content to sit back and watch Ken and the blue dude go at it. Chardsy didn't react all that well to his sudden new arrivals, and stumbled back into the nearby couch, mouth opened but without sound, staring wide-eyed at the exotic creatures that suddenly appeared inside his formerly predictable living room.  
  
He tried to find the words to respond but nothing came out, his mouth moving up and down without success. Ken watched him silently with an air of trepidition; after a moment, Chardsy got himself together and was able to stammer out, "Wha... what the hell are they?"  
  
The little blue guy took it upon himself to answer. "Hi!" it said back. "I'm Veemon, that'sh Gabumon, and we're Digimon!" Chardsy's eyes bugged out of his head again and he drew further into the couch.  
  
"Try to think of them as little people," Ken said. "Maybe it'll help." Chardsy looked at Gabumon, who had leaned forwards and used one long leg to scratch behind his ear, and his eyes calmed down somewhat. He glanced down at Veemon, who was balancing on his forehead, and his eyes came right back out. Ken shook his head despairingly.  
  
"Whoa, dude..." he managed, then glanced over at Gabumon again, who nodded respectfully. "Damn..." Veemon, flipping right back over, stuck out his left hand and Chardsy, being rather stunned, found himself putting his hand into Veemon's automatically. Veemon enthusiastically pumped it up and down and released Chardsy's hand. Chardsy looked down at his hand, where Veemon's little one had held onto it, and looked at Veemon again.  
  
"They're really real, ain't they?" he said. "I... I never really thought..." He trailed off again, with Veemon looking up expectantly at him. Tentatively, Chardsy reached a hand down and patted the little guy on the head. Veemon looked up at him, head to the side.  
  
"They're going to give us a ride," Ken supplied helpfully, standing up. "Come on -- they need to get outside."  
  
Too stunned to respond back, Chardsy just opened the door for them, watching Veemon scurry out and Gabumon walk calmly out behind him. Ken followed the two of them. It was about then that Chardsy's logic came back and in a big way. "Wait a sec -- those little dudes ain't gonna fit either of us on their backs! We'd crush 'em!"  
  
Ken turned, already part of the way down the stairs. "They'll get bigger," he said, and continued down the way. Shaking his head, Chardsy decided to follow them. "When Digimon want to, they can change their shape and abilities in a process that we call digevolving," Ken lectured. "The process is usually pretty bright and they look completely different, so try not to react too much. How far away is the concert place again?"  
  
"A few hours, by car, figure a coupla hundred miles," Chardsy responded automatically. His eyes were on Gabumon, who had simply slid down the stairway banister, chuckling a bit as Veemon pouted from two stories above him.  
  
"One more thing -- why are you wearing that ridiculous getup?" Chardsy looked down at himself. He'd picked it out a few weeks ago for just this occasion, but had modified it since to serve his needs; it was a starkly green jacket, highlighted lightly in black and collar turned up, over a navy blue undershirt. He wore black jeans with two crossing belts, one of them bearing a massive buckle, and capped at the bottoms with a pair of boots. Adorning the outfit were a pair of navy blue gloves, a large necklace with a head that reached below the jacket's top, and a pair of sunglasses.  
  
Chardsy shrugged. "It works."  
  
"For what?" Ken asked incredulously.  
  
"Don't knock it, dude," Chardsy said warningly. "If you think that this is crazy, you'll go nuts at the concert. Besides, one of us has got to have the color, Mr. Grey."  
  
Ken rolled his eyes. "Right. I'll handle the scanning; you stay out in the open and draw attention."  
  
They reached the ground floor to find Veemon and Gabumon waiting for them. Mentally preparing himself, Ken reached out his D-3 towards Gabumon. Chardsy watched mutely as a deeply black light tinged with blue hightlights spilled out of the tiny device, enveloping the relaxed Gabumon and drawing from him a bright white glow. The glow expanded and Gabumon vanished into its brightness, reemerging again when the glow grew diffuse as a giant wolf with a blue-striped white coat and enormous claws. It reared up onto its hind legs and bellowed, "Gabumon, digevolve to... Garurumon!"  
  
Chardsy looked in awe at the newly emerged wolf. He approached it carefully, keeping to one side, and when it became clear that it wasn't going to attack him he stuck out his arm and touched Garurumon's fur on the left side. Garurumon leaned his head over to Chardsy. "Hey, kid," the wolf snarled out. "Would ya mind scratching behind my left ear? Can't quite reach it." Struck with a huge grin Chardsy walked the step forward and rubbed behind Garurumon's ear, which had the wolf grunt a bit. "Thanks, kid, that's been bothering me for a while now."  
  
Chardsy laughed right out loud -- he couldn't help himself -- and turned to Ken. "Damn, man, this is crazy --" It was about then that he noticed Ken's state; on the ground, gasping for breath, D-3 no longer glowing. There was sweat on his forehead. Chardsy reacted immediately; he ran on over and hoisted Ken back to his feet. "You all right, dude? You don't look too good."  
  
Panting now, Ken managed to remain on his feet when Chardsy released him. "I'm okay," he managed to bite out. "Just... not used to trying to force a Digevolution here in the Real World." He straightened up. "It took more out of me than I thought."  
  
Chardsy raised an eyebrow. "How you gonna make the other guy do that when you can barely do this one without fallin' over?" he asked, indicating the impatient Veemon.  
  
Ken put his D-3 away. "Simple," he answered. "He'll do it for me." With that, Ken reached into a pocket and pulled out what looked like a rounded steel box, bright blue with silver highlights. Holding it by a protrusion on the top shaped like a thunderbolt, Ken dropped it onto the ground in front of Veemon. Veemon's eyes shot open as his expression went from confused to solidly understanding.  
  
"Ya shure, Regent?" he asked eagerly. Ken nodded. "That'sh great! I never thoughth I'd get the chancthe to do that again, not after..." Suddenly Veemon ran out of words, and to Chardsy it seemed as if the happy-go-lucky Digimon somehow gained five years in a second; he leaned over, shoulders slumped, with a brutally sad expression in his eyes. Ken leaned down, gently rubbed the little guy's shoulder once. That seemed to placate Veemon somewhat. During that Chardsy and Garurumon looked on, one mystified and the other quietly dignified, allowing his comrade the space he needed.  
  
"I can do thish, Regent," Veemon pronounced after a moment.  
  
"Thanks, Veemon," Ken said quietly. Then, louder, "Step back, everyone! Give him some room!" The three of them walked back a few yards. Meanwhile Veemon picked up the device and held it in both hands, looking it over with that deeply troubled expression back on his face.  
  
"When did you grab that, Regent?" Garurumon whispered to Ken.  
  
"One of the Keeper's acolytes sent it to me when I pulled you two through." he replied absently, watching Veemon. "Funny thing, though; she wanted me to stay on the line for something. Has anything untoward happened over the last few days?"  
  
"It's been quiet as it ever gets," Garurumon replied.  
  
"What's he doin'? What is that thing?" Chardsy asked, gazing intently at Veemon.  
  
"It's called a Digimental, and it'll all be plain in a few seconds," Ken responded.  
  
In the meantime, Veemon seemed to come to some kind of decision; he lifted the device over his head, bellowed at the top of his lungs, and the Digimental exploded into a showering of blue lightning that played over everything around him. Garurumon lowered his head and closed his eyes to block out the brightness; Ken held up his left hand, squinting to see, but failing he pulled his head to the side. Chardsy flipped down his sunglasses and didn't twitch. Veemon's form began to glow, but not like Garurumon's had; rather, it was a diffuse glow laced by electrical discharges. His form was rent asunder, dashed into particles, by one almightly thunder blast coming from the Digimental, but the cloud that had been Veemon remained in the air as the device shot into where Veemon's body had been, and all of the lightning and particles came together and flashed once --  
  
And suddenly there before the others was a much larger blue lizard than Veemon had been, sinewy and long. This creature stood on two legs and was roughly reminiscent of a wolf; but no normal wolf had ever had blue-black armor wrapped around its head, body, and legs, leaving gaps for forelegs and its tail. No wolf ever possessed a horn like this one, either; paper- thin and razor sharp, in the shape of a thunderbolt. The newly unveiled creature reared up on its hind legs and slammed into the ground, releasing an electrical discharge. It bellowed in the rough, thundering voice of the storm, "Veemon armor digevolve to... Raidramon!"  
  
Garurumon raised his head, Ken turned back to look, and Chardsy raised his sunglasses again revealing another shocked expression. Raidramon shook his head and yelled out, "That felt great! Man, I need to do that more often!"  
  
Ken walked forwards. "May I present Raidramon and Garurumon. They're our rides." Raidramon tilted his head to the side while Garurumon's face was split by a feral grin. "Which one do you want?" he asked, and Chardsy swallowed.  
  
****  
  
Two hours later, from the back of Garurumon, Chardsy held on for dear life as he directed the wolf forwards. "Take this right! No, the other one!"  
  
"Alright, we'll take the other one!" Garurumon snapped, and leaped in the opposite direction that he'd been going. Chardsy wasn't quite used to a ride that could change direction on a dime and yelled out at Garurumon did so, clinging onto Garurumon's neck fur for dear life.  
  
Behind them, Ken smirked a bit. He'd had long experience in catching a ride off of Digimon before he was the Regent and so this wasn't too unusual. It was a little different from flying Digimon, though, as he kept quite the firm grip on Raidramon. The four of them were currently running down the grasslands beside a packed highway, and by all accounts they were scaring the passing motorists silly. That might have been from how easily the two Digimon could outrun the cars, though. Raidramon leapt into the air to follow Garurumon and Chardsy's dubious directions -- further clouded by how dark it was getting -- and Ken held himself in place almost effortlessly, just changing his balance for a second.  
  
Ken's Spore suddenly picked up something... foreboding in the distance. Frowning a bit, he got a better grip on Raidramon and thought, 'What's up ahead?'  
  
The Spore extended tendrils of dark energy from itself, trying to tell. As far as Ken could tell the little guy was running on almost full power from his brief encounter with the VandeNet a few days ago. Eventually the Spore came back with an answer. 'There's lotsa and lotsa people ahead, Regent!' it sent. 'Lotsa them!'  
  
"Hey, Ken," Chardsy yelled over. Ken looked up; he suddenly realized that they had stopped moving and Raidramon was pawing the ground in front of him impatiently. "You still with us?"  
  
"Yeah," he said, shaking his head. "What?"  
  
"We're here," Raidramon called out. Ken looked up and, down the steep hill they were standing on, saw the stadium. It was enormous in terms of sheer size; it was completely enclosed with a bulbous roof, with cars completely filling its vast lot, and people streaming into it from every entrance and filling even the parking lot with a mass of moving heads. The floodlights mounted on the top of the stadium, twenty-four of them, pierced the darkness above them with shafts of green light while forty other lights cut their path to light up the area around the stadium. Above their heads, the winds whipped as a trio of helicoptors flew overhead, their marker lights pulsing, moving towards the stadium.  
  
"Wow," Ken whistled. "It's bigger than I thought."  
  
"Good turnout for Gardening," Chardsy said thougthfully. "I hear that they're releasing a few new songs tonight."  
  
"Won't have any problems getting that research stuff done," Chardsy said, and reaching into a jacket pocket he produced two tickets. "Here we go, man. Got all the stuff we need." Ken pocketed one of them while Chardsy replaced the other one. He then jumped off of Garurumon and patted him on the side. "You take it easy for a while -- " Garurumon cut him off by growling softly. Not a nice growl, either; this one was full of suspicion.  
  
"Are you okay?" Raidramon asked. Ken, at his side, looked on concerned.  
  
Abruptly, Garurumon lifted his head to the sky and took in a deep breath through his nose. The others looked on as he did so three more times, then he seemed to relent. "I thought that I smelled someone familiar," he snarled out, "but I was mistaken." With that, he glowed slightly and shrank back down to the horned, striped Gabumon. "Time to go home," the little guy said.  
  
Raidramon crackled with released power as he, too, shed his larger form, becoming Veemon again with the Digimental sitting next to him. "Yeah," he lisped. "Beshides, it'sh too dark here anyway." Ken lifted his D-3 and flicked it on; the tiny screen glowed bright white and the two Digimon collapsed into particles, flying into the D-3's screen and disappearing. The glow inside the D-3 immediately faded after that.  
  
Chardsy shook his head. "Well, here we are," he said, waving at the vast stadium. "What now?"  
  
"We go," Ken said, and motioned downwards.  
  
"Good." They both started downhill, Chardsy in the lead. "Officially we've got real good seats, in the forward section. That means that we can get in a bit early, get relaxed a bit before the show begins." Ken let him babble onward about his favorite subject as he carefully picked his way down to the parking lot. "And that's cool because sometimes Tachikawa gets out there early to warm up on stage for the sound techs. That's just the greatest -- Hey, what's up, man?"  
  
Ken had stopped, his face dropping a few shades, a moment ago. "Did you say Tachikawa?" he asked quickly. Chardsy nodded enthusiastically... and for Ken, all of the pieces that were so carefully gathered as differing components in his mind slammed together. The name of the band, the last name just given to him, and the red-haired girl in the cutout -- if she was a bit younger, and her hair was pink instead of red -- it all added up to a person he'd contended with in his earlier days, back when he was busily terrorizing the Digital World, and it was about to make things a whole lot more complicated.  
  
Mimi Tachikawa.  
  
**** 


	8. The Agenda, Part I

PAUSE FOR BOURGEOIS LEGALITIES "Digimon" and all characters and situations contained within are copyrighted trademarks of Bandai, Saban Entertainment and Upper Deck. Permission is hereby granted by the author to reproduce this document unless you try to make money off of it; if so, please contact me first at Calcite_McWhalen@hotmail.com. I may be a grown-up cartoon fan but I do know my way around Title 17.  
  
****  
  
The Agenda  
  
****  
  
"Odaiba Two to Odaiba One, subject on ground, repeat subject on ground."  
  
"Roger, Odaiba Two. She's on visual. We'll put down in a moment; she won't get far."  
  
The pair of helicopters circled around the landing pad at the stadium, floodlights tracking a woman out in the circular platform. She was quite panicked about her situation, if what the President could tell from her face was any indication. Odaiba One, his bodyguard helicopter, dipped in lower towards the pad, and she scurried away from the center of the landing platform, running for a set of stairs on the far side. He leaned over and took the mic at his side "Odaiba One, this is the President. There's no need for further pursuit."  
  
"Roger that, Mr. President." The helicopter pulled up, rotors whining, and made room on the pad for the President's helicopter, which obligingly put down a moment later. Shaking off the last effects of the bump that had occurred when they landed, the President gripped the handholds on the helicopter's side and pulled himself out of it, dropping the two feet to the ground, coat tails and hair whipping out in all directions by the force of the rotors.  
  
The President surveyed the scene before him as the second helicopter took the place of the first, his bodyguards spilling out of it. The stadium was quite the place - a closed-top floodlit beacon of green and white light in the inky black night. He smirked as he saw the endless stream of people pouring into the stadium, watching with detached interest as they surged and grated against each other. So many people for his reactors to drain off that night. and with Tachikawa whipping the people up into a frenzy they'd just be radiating their energy for his devices to consume. It was beautiful, in its own way.  
  
Of course, he reminded himself, this would be the last show for Gardening Sincerity for some time. He resisted the urge to laugh out loud at that and, turning, entered the stadium.  
  
****  
  
"Just how many people are going to arrive?" Ken shouted over the din. He'd managed to make it inside without having to raise his voice, but now that they'd actually entered, he had to yell even to hear himself. It wasn't just that that was unnerving, though. That honor went to the people in the stadium itself. Ken had guessed that it would have a seating capacity of about twenty thousand, but that number was a bit short - he was positively crowded now, with the place halfway full, and more people were entering by the moment. None of this was making Ken particularly comfortable.  
  
"This place'll be full, man, and people standing up in the rows besides!" Chardsy howled, clearly enjoying himself. "This is gonna be great!" Ken had realized when they'd arrived that Chardsy had been right way back at the start when he'd said that he'd dressed conservatively. Most of the new arrivals were wearing anything from straight leather and rings everywhere to some people who seemed to only regard clothes as partially necessary. Having never been exposed to so much bared skin Ken had to keep catching himself from staring and keep his mind on the task at hand. It was a constant battle.  
  
The two of them were seated in what Chardsy had referred to as the 'nosebleed' section, and given the circumstances Ken was inclined to agree. He wasn't sure, but it certainly seemed like he couldn't get much higher up into the stands. It was all that he could do to see the stage -- the sound technicians running around on stage were as small as ants from his perspective. It didn't help that even all the way in the nosebleed section that they were mobbed by people of all kinds, closer and louder than Ken would have liked any of them to be. Ken shifted uncomfortably in his seat, wondering how in hell Chardsy could have enjoyed this sort of thing. Even at the soccer games in the digital world he kept apart from the crowds, but here was Chardsy having a blast just mingling and talking to people he'd never see again!  
  
"I'm going to get some readings. I'll be back after a few minutes." Chardsy waved him off, too busy with the three girls around him to respond, and Ken made his way around seats and bizarre humans to walk all the way to the top of the nosebleed section, eyeing one of the crossway ladders that lead to the lighting equipment and speakers and other arcane devices. That would be the best place to get away from it all and set up for the concert -- which was still an hour from even starting. Chardsy's insistence on getting to the concert more than an hour ahead of schedule wasn't Ken's favorite idea. Glancing around, seeing nobody right away, he gripped the ladder with both hands and climbed up. The scaffolding wasn't more than fifteen feet up, and once he reached the top, he pulled out his D-3.  
  
Glancing at the screen quickly he saw that there wasn't anybody there; it was blank. He keyed the device to call Datamon's lab, then looked around. There was still nobody up here, and down below Chardsy was having a good time relaxing while positively surrounded by people. Not all of them were girls anymore, either. Shaking his head Ken looked toward the dim light of his D-3 and waited for the connection to solidify. Eventually the screen cleared to show a very alert Stingmon on the screen, in a room that looked nothing like Datamon's pyramid. Ken's left eyebrow twitched upwards. "Stingmon?"  
  
The insectoid nodded. "Yes. Datamon's set up camp here, where the surveillance equipment is better. Besides, we couldn't all crowd into Datamon's tiny little control center."  
  
"Of course," Ken said dryly. "Should have guessed that. Where is Datamon, anyway?"  
  
The little monkey sprang onto the screen, somehow managing to push Stingmon out of the screen. "Right here, Regent. We're all set up, so can you pull out the scanner that I sent you?" Ken did so. "Alright. Place it so that the clear part of the head is facing the most humans that you can get it to." He rotated the device and pointed it straight down, towards the crowd. Obligingly the little device let out a single low beep and a light flickered briefly. "That's great. That's all we need for you to do for now - I'll take care of the rest!" With that he bounded off and Stingmon replaced him in the screen.  
  
"Anything else, Ken?" Stingmon said.  
  
Ken took a breath, braced himself. This was a call he didn't want to make. "I need you to transfer me over to the Keeper."  
  
Stingmon cocked his head slightly to the left, but typed in the access codes and began the process. "Let's see. it'll be three minutes before I can get a connection to the Chamber. Can I ask why?"  
  
"Sure," Ken said. "I happen to be at a concert hall of some sort, where one of the old Chosen is performing."  
  
"Ooh," Stingmon exhaled slowly. "Which one is it?"  
  
"Tachikawa," Ken said. "I don't exactly remember, but I think that she's the Chosen for Sincerity."  
  
"Okay," Stingmon said hesitently. "Um. with all due respect to her, I don't see the relevence. Why worry about her? She might have mattered back in the day, but now - now, I don't see how she's important."  
  
He took a deep breath, summing up what he was going to say for a moment. "A long time ago," Ken answered, "once when you were very busy, I promised a dying man that if I had the opportunity to make amends with the Chosen I would take it. I wasn't planning to go out of my way looking for them - I'm not ready yet for them - but I have to try now that fate's shoved her in my face. I have to try and gain her forgiveness." Ken spread his hands out, a gesture of helplessness. "Sometimes I wish I hadn't told him that, but I did, and I have to go through with it."  
  
It was probably the longest speech made by the Regent that was entirely about himself in the last few years, and Stingmon didn't reply for a long moment, eyes off to the side, unfocused, remembering the most difficult day in his life. After a moment of thought the insectoid came to some kind of decision and, turning, looked at Ken in the eyes. "Okay, then. That's what we'll do." A beep came from his board and he glanced down. "Your call is ready, but it's not the Keeper who's taking it. It's one of his. uh, what did he call them?"  
  
"Acolytes," Ken supplied, feeling much relieved. "An unusual name for them." With that last exchange, the connection flickered and displayed, instead of the metallic and efficient Command Center, a stone room of some sort with a few flickering devices in the background. This screen had one of the Migotomon at the mic; Bishojo, if memory served. She was probably the only named Migotomon there was, his mind chimed. At any rate, she looked tired and irritable and generally something to keep away from at the moment.  
  
She started first. "Regent, what do you need?" Her words were careful; her voice, tight. Ken didn't blame her; he and the Keeper weren't on the friendliest of terms, and this particular Migotomon would have picked up on the stress between the two of them.  
  
"Where's the Keeper?" he asked. "I've got business with him." He glanced around quickly, decided that nobody was in watching vicinity. The show certainly didn't seem like it was in a hurry to kick off, and Chardsy's little block party had grown again so that most of the nosebleed section was involved.  
  
"He's in the Chamber itself," she responded coolly, "and is having me take calls today."  
  
"Fine," he said blandly. "Can you leave him a message? In my real world travels, I've found one of the Chosen, and I decided that he ought to know." Bishojo's eyes all but sprang from their sockets. Ken felt a certain satisfaction in watching that happen.  
  
"Hang on for a moment, Regent," she said quickly, and leapt from the seat, flying out of the room faster than a lot of things that Ken had seen in his lifetime. He sat back and waited for a moment, glancing around at the equipment around him. only to realize that a few of the devices up here weren't lights or obvious speakers. Keeping low, he stepped quietly over to them and examined one particular device, one that seemed larger than the others; it was marked PROPERTY OF ODAIBA GROUP: KEEP OFF and, in smaller lettering OG-EDR-3-1.45. Next to it was a digital display: DRN 60% TIME: 22:00 RNG Omni. Other than those few details it was a completely nondescript box. He took another look at it, trying to decipher the cryptic markings in his head, but the Keeper coming onto the line cut off his mental train of thought.  
  
"You found a Chosen?!" the Keeper fairly shouted into the mic. As usual when he talked to Ken the hood was down, exposing his untended mop of brunette hair. "Which one? Is she still the same? C'mon, man, give me some detail here!" His hands were wringing against each other, his body twitching left and right. Ken decided that it would be a safe deduction to call him excited.  
  
"I haven't actually seen her yet, but I've got it on good authority that Mimi Tachikawa's here in whatever stadium I happen to be taking readings in." Ken glanced down below at the enormous crowds. "There's another thirty thousand humans here, though, so actually finding her shouldn't be all that easy."  
  
"Don't worry about that," the Keeper snickered with something of a grin on his face, settling back in his chair. "She'll make herself very obvious."  
  
"I don't follow," Ken said carefully. This wouldn't be a good time to get into a sparring match. "How so?"  
  
The Keeper shook his head, still smiling a bit. "Regent, she'll be the star of the show, guaranteed."  
  
****  
  
"This is where I like to grab a bite to eat, if I've got a few moments," Hawkmon said enthusiastically, leading Miyako inside with one wing. "It doesn't get much better than this for avians, but I think that they've got a smaller menu for normal Digimon." Hawkmon was in heaven. He was here, Miyako was here, and they were doing stuff together for the first time in six years. Even though his memories of her from before were pretty cloudy the feeling in his gut told him that this was Miyako and everything was all right now. Everything.  
  
"Wow," Miyako breathed out, for what seemed to be the fifth time that day. The restaurant wasn't all that impressive if one could ignore the open-air chefs and six floors and some thirty kinds of bird Digimon that constituted the restaurant. It was laced with ivy crawling up the sides, bunching wherever a booth could be found, with a small waterfall coming from the top floor and rushing to the bottom, creating an ambient roar that allowed privacy. She breathed deeply, getting a whiff of broiled fish and a few hints of fruits. Hawkmon leapt into the air and started flying straight up - towards his favorite spot, all the way up on the left side - and he got about a third of the way up by the time Miyako got out of her trance and realized he was flying off. "Hawkmon, wait!"  
  
Her shout brought the whole place to a standstill, as everybody in the restaurant suddenly stopped what they were doing, turned, and stared at her. She felt pretty uncomfortable. On the way here she had managed to not draw too much attention but in this little place it felt like a hundred pairs of eyes were on her. Nervously she glanced down at her feet and waved to the inhabitants. "Uh. hi?" she said hesitantly.  
  
Fortunately, Hawkmon came to her rescue; dropping at her feet, he threw back his head, started to glow, and yelled as his feathers exploded outwards and his body reshaped itself in the glow. Rising up onto his two back legs the newly shaped Aquilamon glanced around at the other Digimon in the area. They all decided that they had better things to look at and went back to their meals. Satisfied, Aquilamon turned back around to look at Miyako, who was staring at Aquilamon with a mixture of awe and something else Aquilamon couldn't quite gauge. She wasn't moving much. "Miyako? Are you all right?"  
  
She shook herself and nodded. "Yeah," she said weakly, then tried again. "Yeah. I'm alright. What do I call you now?"  
  
"I am Aquilamon in this form," he declared proudly, then leaned down in front of her, presenting his brown back. She slowly climbed up on him, managing to keep her shuddering down on his back, and also managed to not scream when he shot off towards the ceiling. This wasn't a huge but gentle AirDramon, flying smoothly like on an airplane; this was like riding the wind, and having the wind love what it did. She managed to barely hang on to his neck and he shortly arrived at a booth at the top floor. She gingerly got off of him, sitting down on the seat, feet on the flimsy supports for the booth; it was bolted to the wall, with about a foot of material holding it up from a five-story drop, surrounded by various vines and the top of a tree.  
  
Glancing around, she noted that none of the other Digimon were paying her or Aquilamon much attention. "They're really worried about you, aren't they?" she asked him. Aquilamon, perched on top of the booth on the other side, glanced over at her, making eye contact; he had hooded eyes as Aquilamon, eyes that had seen much.  
  
"I head the Protectors here in the digital world," he said, glancing back out at the crowd. "They're not entirely comfortable when I'm around."  
  
"Protectors?" she asked, head up and still looking at Aquilamon's eyes.  
  
"They're akin to police from your world," Aquilamon said. "Everybody wants them around, but they're nobody's friends." The waiter came by then, dropping off menus and generally being pleasant. It was hard for Miyako to not stare at a Bakemon waiter, though. Aquilamon caught her glance amusedly. "Bakemon may be virus types, but their innate teleportation abilities make them great waiters."  
  
Miyako opened her mouth to say something back, but a ringing sound somewhere nearby cut her off. "Damn," Aquilamon grunted out. "Hang on a second." He lifted one foot-claw, reached inside one of his wings, and pulled out a tiny device. A tinny voice could be heard out of it, and the giant hawk said, "He's what?" The tinny voice again. "Very well, I'll be there in a moment." With that, Aquilamon shut his phone down and looked over at a rather confused Miyako. "Come on. I need to get to the Command Center and you're coming with me. We'll have to find you a place to stay later."  
  
She didn't know why, but she cringed inside from that suggestion, and her mind provided a quick way out of the situation. "But. but I have to get back to my world!" Miyako blurted. "I've got people there who need my help, and I can't stay here!"  
  
Aquilamon looked over at her. "You mean that?" he asked carefully. Miyako stopped, took a moment to think, but she couldn't get over a kind of dread or fear inside her. It was one that she hadn't even noticed until she had made it here, and that worried her. With it inside she felt like she couldn't think at all, and all she was doing by thinking was making herself feel worse.  
  
"Well. yeah, I kinda do," she said quietly. "Like I said, people there rely on me and I have to find a way to help them."  
  
"Alright, then," Aquilamon said, and the two of them wing it off for the center of the city. "Tell you what, though - why don't you ask for some help? You used to be a Chosen, so you'll have some sympathy going for you here."  
  
"I don't know," Miyako mused out loud, suddenly comfortable again. "I'd feel like I was using the situation. What is this Command Center we're going to, anyway?" Sensing Miyako's more relaxed state Aquilamon felt a bit more at ease himself.  
  
"The Command Center's where the Regent and his staff run the digital world from," Aquilamon said. "I don't quite know why we're going there myself. All I know is that the Regent's close to meeting one of the Chosen, and being a former Chosen's digimon I'm allowed to watch when this comes down." Aquilamon made a satisfied noise in the back of his throat. "I can't imagine the uproar that'll come down when they realize you're here, and without a D-3 too!"  
  
"Who's this Regent guy, anyway?" Miyako yelled back at him. "I keep hearing his name, but that's all anyone ever tells me!"  
  
****  
  
An Odaiba Group stasis chamber was a small, rounded piece of technology that was manufactured entirely to keep a person alive and unconscious for an extended period of time. Inside a stasis chamber a concoction of chemicals kept a person comatose, but also forced the brain to maintain the same levels of hormones inside of itself. In effect, the person cannot wake or change what they might have been feeling at the time when they were placed inside of a stasis chamber. Which, considering its rather limited use, was exactly what the doctor ordered for the Odaiba Group.  
  
The Assistant walked over to the third one of these devices in line, passing two others that contained an unremarkable brunette and a cheerful- looking blonde kid. Stopping by her desired container, the Assistant tapped a few keys on the side of the device; it emitted a hiss and the chemicals inside of it drained into a storage tank at the rear of the device. The chambers didn't fill with liquid chemicals; rather, the chemicals were all gasses. After a moment, the chamber's contents had been replaced with normal air and the front of the chamber opened. The inhabitant fell out of the chamber, landing on the floor at the woman's feet. She glared down haughtily at him.  
  
For Iori Hida, it was if he was climbing a staircase back to reality, but for some reason he felt angry at himself and the world. Why was it? He couldn't recall the reason, but it was there. He focused, bringing his memory to the forefront of his mind, and remembered: being captured, being set free, being three feet away from freedom before something poked him and everything went black. He remembered being angry at something, some kind of betrayal.  
  
"Have you come around yet?" a cold voice asked from above him. Iori turned halfway - whatever chemicals they were using on him kept him weak as a puppy - and looked up at the face of his inquisitor. Very pale skin was outlined by long silver hair and her eyes were hidden behind dark sunglasses; she wore a rather casual dress with a large red hat. Even though Iori couldn't see her eyes, the cold steel behind her gaze burned through to him, and he had to keep from shivering. He returned the glare as best he could and slowly climbed to his feet, stumbling a bit but making it in the end.  
  
"I'd say I have, yes," he spat out, and straightened a bit. She cocked her head to one side.  
  
"Temper, temper, little boy," she chided him. "Why, I don't have anything against you at all!"  
  
"Then why the stasis thingie?" Iori yelled back. She merely smirked and, lifting a hand, seemed to push the air very slightly; as she did an unseen force hit Iori lightly on his chest, and the weakened Chosen lost his balance and fell on his back.  
  
"Calm down," she admonished him. "There's no need for shouting - remember, we're parleying, right?" Iori glanced away and didn't respond. She continued, "After all, you did come to us and told use you were going to try to slow down Miyako's little insurrection, remember? Something about trying to compromise with us." Iori still didn't look up to meet her gaze. "Well, I just wanted you to know that we owe you quite the favor. We did use your escape route to track down the base."  
  
That got a reaction. "What?!" Iori all but shouted, suddenly glaring up at her. She kept looking down at him, a strange smile on her face.  
  
"That turned out to be more than useful, though; Miyako came charging in here, ready to release all of you, didn't she? Too bad for her that one of my comrades caught her quickly." Iori's gaze didn't waver much but his face dropped about three shades.  
  
"Where is she?" he said, surging back to his feet unsteadily. "I - I gotta see her!"  
  
"You misunderstand me," the Assistant said, and waved towards the other statis chambers. "We don't have her in that sense. You see, the person who caught her decided that it would be better to kill Miyako." His face went straight to white, the realization of his role came crashing down on him. He opened his mouth to scream even as something flashed out behind him. and instead of screaming he collapsed to the floor, mouth still open, face pinched tightly. The Assistant wasted no time; she gathered him up and tossed him inside the nearest stasis chamber, which obligingly slammed shut and hissed as it engaged its chemical pumps.  
  
Gun still held at the ready, Taichi Yagami walked out of the shadows. "Good shot," the Assistant said. "I've finished what I need to, for now. You can go." She turned and looked at the stasis chamber Iori was esconced inside. "He's ready for what the President has in mind."  
  
****  
  
That concert was, without a doubt, the most nerve-wracking thing that Ken Ichijouji had ever been to. The screaming was so intense that he could hardly hear himself think, but the music was worse in terms of loud; it reached out one almighty arm and crushed his poor eardrums flat. Not that the music was bad; no, it was one of the better pop-rock sounds that he'd heard, with an edge of emo placed in every now and then. He was tossed to and fro by the crowd, often only keeping near the vastly more experienced Chardsy by chance. Eventually, though, the band on stage called a break and Ken was released.  
  
He dropped to one knee for a moment, trying to collect himself. Here in the crowd he felt as if there wasn't enough room to breathe, let alone think, but he had seen the claustrophobia enough in his life to know how to go about fighting it. "How long," he managed after a moment, shouting slightly to be heard above the somewhat more muted crowd, "will it be before Gardening Sincerity takes the stage again?"  
  
Chardsy glanced at his watch. "Figure about. oh, half an hour or so."  
  
Ken nodded and glanced down at his D-3, now resting inside a front pocket of his gray uniform. He'd set it there to keep it safe. "Then I guess it's time, isn't it?"  
  
"For what?" Chardsy asked. Rather than answer Ken turned and started towards the stage door on the left side, marked AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY. Chardsy had to hurry to keep up; Ken had a determined pace to his stride. "Dude, we can't go back there!" he protested. "We gonna get tossed for sure!"  
  
"I wouldn't worry about it," Ken said. "We'll be fine." Chardsy opened his mouth to protest, but closed it after a moment. He'd decided to give up on second-guessing Ken. For his part, Ken rolled right on over to where the door was. Ken stopped in front of it and reached for the door as if nothing was wrong, while Chardsy kept glancing around and generally being rather suspect.  
  
The door wasn't locked. "What?!" Chardsy all but shouted. "Damn, man, they know better than to leave the door unlocked - you never know what kind of crazy bastard goes to these concerts!" Ken pulled back, letting the door slip from his fingers and close, and glanced around the immediate area.  
  
"Come to think of it," Ken said thoughtfully, "where do you suppose the guards are?" Chardsy looked around as well, realizing what Ken was saying. There weren't any guards around.  
  
Chardsy shook his head. "This ain't right, man."  
  
Ken shoved the door open, beginning to get a tad worried. "Come on!"  
  
****  
  
The adulating crowds gathered at her feet had always been her biggest thrill. Nobody else in the world got the kind of crazed acceptance that Mimi Tachikawa could command just by bringing her voice and body to the fore. Hordes of fans, eyes and minds glazed over by her mere presence, swaying in time as she ripped out the chords to her newest single piece or an old standby. It didn't matter. She could be alone up there, no backup instruments, and she'd still command their attention as if she had created all. In fact, that was the whole point of her newest single. Singing alone, no backup from the others for about thirty seconds.  
  
Mimi tipped her head back, taking a long pull from the water bottle, sweat streaming down her face, back, arms, legs. The stage had always been beastly hot because of the lights and the sound and the action occuring on stage. She wasn't wearing any more than she could get away with, not only because it was almost overwhelmingly sweltering, she'd also command more attention this way. It was little things like that which had allowed her to spare the most important part of her, the one thing that had been almost consumed by her singing life.  
  
She had spared her soul.  
  
Singing at a concert used to also involve her soul. She would throw everything into it, mind and soul, and the resulting blast of feeling from the crowds would leave her, drained but happy, barely standing after three hours. Even though she loved the sheer pulse she had begun to tire herself right out - she couldn't keep throwing her soul into every concert or it was going to kill her, especially at the rate that she'd been going, with a concert almost every day. She simply couldn't do it.  
  
She ran a hair through her red hair, dyed that way to remember an old friend. She didn't want to simply drop her soul out of the music - it was apparent that the soul powered her music, at least to her - but she hadn't much choice in the matter, what with a band to support. Mimi had insisted that the group always be self-sufficient and they'd managed it well enough until, still largely unknown on the major records scale, they'd almost collapsed one night when Mimi was simply too tired and couldn't give it anything else. The band had stopped touring almost immediately and as such started to go through money quickly. It was then that Mimi had been approached by the Odaiba Group, or more specifically, the President. He'd explained what he could do for them; the record deal, the end of unstopping concerts, the chance to be themselves and create new stuff. The only thing that he asked was for the name recognition.  
  
He had delivered his end of the bargain. Suddenly she hadn't had to try quite so hard. She had a few days of down between a concert instead of confronting a new concert in a new town every night. It was even getting to the point where she was less tired than the maddened crowds that she sang for. She could even take the time to have a loose semblence of a personal life, moving from intriguing guy to intriguing guy when she could. She had delivered her end of the bargain. With the international exposure at her side she'd always mentioned the Odaiba Group and how it was helping not only her but the entire world with its clean, safe energy reactors.  
  
Lowering the bottle, she glanced around quickly for the others and replaced the cap of her drink. Funny, the others weren't tuning their instruments. Her mind was still turning that over when she noticed him in the far corner; a shadow in a business suit, one whom she was vaguely familiar with. "Hey, it's you!" she said. "What's up, Prez? I kinda have a show to run here."  
  
He ignored that statement, drawing out of the darkness at the corner and to the lit area where the band kept their gear. "I saw you out there, Mimi."  
  
She grinned at him. "Whatdja think?" she asked, taking another swig from the water bottle.  
  
"I've never seen such an easily manipulated crowd in all my life," he answered wryly. "It's no wonder why you get me so much business." His hands were clasped behind his back; his expression unreadable.  
  
"Yeah, I know," she said sweetly, dropping the bottle. "It's what I do."  
  
"Grand," he replied. "I came to talk a little business, and it concerns how you carry yourself out there."  
  
She spun in place once, showing off. It was wasted on the President. "So what do you want to ask me?"  
  
He started to pace, circling her slowly at a goodly distance, hands still behind his back, focused expression on his face. "I can see that you enjoy messing with the crowd's collective mind, but why?"  
  
"Hey, just what are you accusing me of?" Mimi shot back, trying to ignore her own inner conscience. Since she took her soul out of shows it seemed like she only became more popular but somehow it didn't feel right, like she was cheating on a test. She hadn't ever considered why it still worked, but when he put it that way. Oh yeah, he was still waiting for an answer. Turning to match his new position, she said, "I guess that it's kind of fun. They all think that I'm giving it my all, and I'm not, and they can't tell the difference."  
  
"You're pretty good at it, aren't you?" he conceded. "Until I came up here I wasn't sure about that. You put on a hell of a show - even fooled me a bit." Was that the wisping edge of a smile on his face? Mimi couldn't tell, but she was pretty sure it was.  
  
She turned again to match him. "Of course I do. I'm the best there is at concerts!" Truth to tell, Mimi told herself, she probably was.  
  
This time there wasn't any hint of the smile; it came right out, showing off for the universe, with a slightly sarcastic edge. "Of course. How could I forget that?"  
  
"I can't imagine," she responded, just as sweet as ever.  
  
"Nor can I," he remarked wryly. "We both know that the crowds enjoy your shows. Now, do you get anything out of the concerts?"  
  
She turned again, beginning to get irritated. "You mean besides the worldwide fame and the tons of money?" She also stomped her foot a bit; obligingly, he ceased pacing and looked at her frankly.  
  
"This is important, Tachikawa," he said, expression dropping from his face, eyes becoming hard. "I need an answer - is this just motions for you, or does any of this even touch you anymore?" She frowned, considering despite herself. She always got a great feeling off of the crowd, but she could go anywhere for that. She didn't put her all into it anymore and she never really felt drained coming off of the stage. Her frown deepened somewhat as she realized where he was going with this - she didn't get much off of this anymore, did she? It was all just. routine, now.  
  
"No," she said, shaking her head. "I guess I don't get much out of it."  
  
"But you do it anyway," the President prompted.  
  
".Yeah."  
  
"Without any real meaning behind it," he said quickly. "Without the sincere edge anymore. It's become something to do in and of itself, hasn't it?"  
  
She hadn't felt as down as she felt right then in a long while. "I guess so."  
  
Finally the President's face formed into an expression again; it was possibly the most predatory smile that she'd ever seen, and she became nervous just being around it. "That's precisely what I thought," the President said, and he lifted a hand, spreading his fingers out and shoving the palm in her direction. She opened her mouth to say something, to protest, but a light of deepest black flared out of his palm, and then all was pain and darkness.  
  
****  
  
Bishojo was a fairly calm person, all things considered. Sure, if somebody caught her eye she'd never let them go - just ask the Keeper about that - but other than that she was a sensible, even-tempered creature that managed to get along with pretty much all of the other Migotomon.  
  
That meant that it was a pretty rare thing to see her tearing out of the Chamber Core, hair askew and eyes wild, flying rather than walking like pretty much everyone else, shooting straight past the dorms. The other Migotomon stuck their heads out the door when she went past, yelling for the Keeper at the top of her panic-stricken lungs. A few of them, more curious than the others, followed her out. She was headed for the surface tunnel, where the Keeper was known to sometimes sit.  
  
It seemed like Bishojo always just knew where the Keeper was, and today was no different; he was working a ball over, tossing it into the air, trapping it and using the nearby wall to send it back at him when he was ready for a little bit of fast reacting. "Da - Keeper!" she yelled out, pulling up to a stop. "It's happening again!"  
  
He didn't need to be told a second time. Ball abandoned, spinning around, he ran almost as fast as she flew. Even so, she still picked him up and kicked her flight into high gear, shooting straight for the Chamber Core, where the Sigils and the Digimentals were kept. He raised his hand and pointed it towards the closed door, and the moment that the two of them hit it it was knocked aside as if it was a piece of paper.  
  
He jumped out of her quick embrace as fast as he could, glancing around wildly for the telltale sign. He could see the Sigils now, devices crafted out of some kind of metal into the symbols of the Chosen. Some of them were glowing faintly, one particular one was pulsing with power, and some of them weren't glowing at all; they'd been turned to stone. One particular one in the corner - shaped in the circles-within-teardrop of Sincerity - that had formerly glowed faintly was now flickering; and even as the small crowd of people looked on a swirling sort of darkness came up around it, concealing it from view.  
  
"Bishie, what's going on out there?" the Keeper whispered sadly. "Why is all this happening?" Bishojo didn't respond, just grabbed onto him and held him for all she was worth.  
  
****  
  
They had passed the unconscious security guards a few seconds ago; Ken had checked them to make sure they were alive, but there were more important matters afoot for them to tarry here watching over helpless humans. Chardsy's bad feeling about this whole mess got quite a bit worse when he saw the bodies, though. He took the lead, running through the underground of the stadium, trying to reach the center of the tunnels before something happened. He wasn't sure what that something would be, not exactly, but he was 100% sure that it wouldn't be any good for his favorite singing star.  
  
Along the way they passed more people, keeled over, along the sides of the tunnel. Ken insisted on checking on a few and found that they all appeared the same way as the security guards - passed out but without any kind of injury. Chardsy shook his head as he ran down the brightly lit hall. He was sure that they'd been drugged or something, but Ken insisted that drugs weren't to blame here. Ken believed that their energy had been completely drained, like what Chardsy's report said that the Odaiba Group had been responsible for. Chardsy didn't know what to make of that, but kept running anyway. He turned a bend, ran down another straight corridor -  
  
And stopped dead at the sight laid out in front of him.  
  
His favorite singer Mimi was about two feet up in the air, held aloft by some kind of energy beam that a large man wearing a suit and tie was shooting at her with his bare hand. Her mouth was open but no sound was coming out; the beam itself was jet black and was darkening the room with its ebony brilliance. Chardsy found himself paralyzed, unable to do anything, but Ken jumped right past him, taking in the scene without even a second glance. Chardsy hadn't gotten more than a quick look at Ken but it seemed that he was suddenly a different person; determined with eyes of cold steel.  
  
Even with Ken's speed, though, whatever it was that the mystery person was doing to Mimi was too far along to be disrupted.  
  
Ken hadn't made it six steps before something small and glittery spat itself out of Mimi's body. The beam latched onto the little thing, allowing Mimi's body to drop unceremoniously to the ground. To Chardsy, it seemed to take a while for her body to hit the floor, but when it did, he was galvanized into action; he charged across the area and grabbed onto her shoulders, checking her. She was alive and even a bit responsive; she shivered ever so slightly. He glanced back up at the strange, dangerous man to find that his beam had neatly caught the little silver thing, pulling it into his hands; even as Chardsy watched, the man picked up the little device in his left hand. The man then brought his left hand to his mouth and swallowed the little thing.  
  
Ken stopped his wild rush forwards and stood there, out in the light with the mystery man. The man smacked his lips once, then pronounced, "Delicious."  
  
Ken didn't seem to share his opinion. "Who are you?" the indigo-haired man demanded.  
  
The man hadn't bothered to send more than a casual look their way, but when Ken spoke he turned his gaze upon Ken. After a short moment of intense staring a light went on in the man's head. "Of course. I should have seen it sooner. Welcome back to the real world, little Emperor. I should have known that you'd go through the gate yourself rather than send a spy."  
  
Ken shook his head. "I'm no Emperor anymore. Who are you?"  
  
"Me?" The President leaned his head slightly back, contemplating his answer. "Oh. for now, I'm the President of the Odaiba Group."  
  
Ken's lip rose up slightly into a sneer. "Charmed. What did you do to that Chosen?"  
  
"Her?" The President indicated the now-motionless Mimi that Chardsy was crouched over. "I took her Sigil for my own, Emperor. I should think that would be obvious."  
  
"Okay. We'll try another question. Why did you do that to her?"  
  
The President raised a single eyebrow. "That's confidential information, Emperor. I can't go telling my reasoning to everyone who walks down the street, can I? I'm sure that you understand about hidden agendas."  
  
Chardsy didn't know what to make of any of this, but it seemed like Ken had heard enough. He raised his right hand, then brought it down; as he did, a black band of flaring energy appeared in his hand, shaping itself into a rough parody of a fencing sabre. "You're attacking Chosen. I promised an old comrade that I'd do what I can to make amends with them, and I can't do that if you kill them all." Ken lifted his sabre into a ready position and slowly advanced.  
  
"That's unfortunate." The President raised his own right arm, shrugging out of his suit jacket as he did so; the whole of his arm suddenly glowed a deep, rich ebony. Ken stopped and looked on as the right arm of the President expanded, forming itself into a giant, grotesquely ridged claw that seemed to ooze dark power and malice. Raising his newly clawed arm the President squared off against his new opponent, a hint of menace on the edge of his confident smile.  
  
TO BE CONTINUED 


	9. The Agenda, Part II

PAUSE FOR BOURGEOIS LEGALITIES "Digimon" and all characters and situations contained within are copyrighted trademarks of Bandai, Saban Entertainment and Upper Deck. Permission is hereby granted by the author to reproduce this document unless you try to make money off of it; if so, please contact me first at Calcite_McWhalen@hotmail.com. I may be a grown-up cartoon fan but I do know my way around Title 17.  
  
****  
  
The Agenda, Part II  
  
****  
  
The President shook his head pityingly at the opponents marshaled before him, and with good reason; at first glance, none of them could offer him even a mildly interesting contest. The only one of the three other people in the room who could even return his stare without flinching away was the indigo-haired person standing in front of him, burning black energy saber at the fore. Of course that was entirely because this person, Ken Ichijouji, had been the Emperor of the entire digital world at one time. That sort of experience tends to harden a person. His hair, tied back in its customary tale, flipped back to his neck as he twisted his head slightly, allowing it to fall; a single set of matched scars fell down from his mouth, reaching down towards his neck but not quite making it. The President kept a careful eye on him, waiting for the man to make the first move.  
  
The others were of no consequence. A small black man resided in the shadows, gathering up an unconscious Tachikawa in his arms. He was neither armed nor ready for any kind of close combat. Tachikawa herself was much like the others had been when he, the President, had forced them to reject their Sigils; she was in shock from the loss and immediate pain. Given time she'd wake up, get over the shock, and try to move on with her life. Also like the others, she'd find that there was no solace from what the President had done to her. Her guardian of sorts had decided that discretion was the better part of valor and, with Mimi in his arms, he had fled to the back of the room and into the nearby corridor.  
  
The President turned back towards Ichijouji, flexing his newly anointed appendage as he did so. The claw he'd created out of his right arm was a bony, misshapen thing made up of two massive fingers and a single huge thumb, arranged so that the thumb fell between the two fingers. Each finger was roughly the size of the President's forearm had been. The claw was rooted to his shoulder - his right torso was pulled forward by its presence, merging with the demonic thing. The claw was a bone white in color. For his part Ichijouji had raised his saber slightly and started to advance.  
  
Lifting the claw, the President charged towards Ken, sweeping his claw across the middle, intending to grab the guy but Ichijouji simply jumped up and over the President, swinging his saber straight down on the way over -  
  
-- the President moved his head to the left, continuing his sweep with his claw over to Ken's new position --  
  
-- which was ducked, Ken swinging his saber up and towards the President's face --  
  
-- the President backpedaled sharply but Ken suddenly took the offensive, swinging left and right, forcing the President to back up again --  
  
-- Ken suddenly swung his saber across, slicing at the claw --  
  
-- and the President neatly blocked the blow with his claw, which neither shattered it nor cut it off.  
  
Ken stepped back in surprise, sneaking a quick look at his saber as he did so; it was still there and glowing just the same as before, but the claw wasn't cut through at all, not even a mark to show the saber's contact. The President lifted the claw up, same as before, and rushed forwards --  
  
-- Ken sidestepped the outreaching claw and swung his blade to the left --  
  
-- the claw moved to block and, the President and the Regent saber to claw, Ken reached out and punched the President in the face with his other hand. The claw swept upwards at the impact, saber pushed the same way, and the President lashed out with his claw sideways to make some room between Ken and him, holding his suddenly bleeding nose with his left hand. A murderous expression flashed up onto the President face for a second, replaced a moment later by a smug sneer. The President's left hand suddenly flashed a deep green and when he pulled his hand away his nose had been restored.  
  
Ken raised an eyebrow. "You absorbed the abilities that go with the sigil?"  
  
"You could say that, Emperor," the President responded.  
  
Ken snarled back, "I'll just have to hit you harder next time."  
  
In the back, watching all of this and wearing a stupefied expression, Chardsy had been checking Mimi over; she wasn't bleeding and didn't seem to have been hurt at all, despite having a crystal ripped out of her body. Chardsy tried to come up with some reason why she'd have a crystal in her body to start with but couldn't move past the point that the red-haired beauty was right there, right then, laying on the floor directly beneath him. Shaking his head, Chardsy returned his attention to the battle, where Ken and the President were at it again, sword and claw-thing moving faster than he could see. His adrenaline was off and running but he knew better than to interfere -- he was so outclassed that trying to help was a fast way to a quick death, and might just get Ken killed too. He could only watch.  
  
****  
  
Stingmon's armored fist slammed down on a nearby piece of equipment. "Isn't there anything we can do?" Behind him, on the screen, was Datamon's projection of Ken's battle with the President, constructed from the audio input from the D-3 that was still on in Ken's pocket and from Ken's own body; he was so deeply connected with the digital world that with the right technology it could remotely track his every action. Most of the Administrators were inside the Command Center, watching the fight between Ken and  
  
"I wouldn't worry too much about it, Sting," Piedmon said absently, watching the fight with an entertained expression. "I'd say that the home team's got this one in the bag; he may be able to use some digital world powers but he's not any kind of fighting match -- ooh, look at that!" On the screen, Ken had just skimmed the President's arm with his saber; the larger man had retreated clutching his wounded limb with the claw-hand.  
  
Angemon nodded once from his corner of the Command Center. "Good. He hasn't taken any hits - skill's on his side yet!"  
  
"He's too chivalrous," Piedmon countered, immediately playing the Devil's Advocate. "He should have pursued and cut the fool down. This isn't any kind of spar here; the President will kill him if he shows any kind of weakness."  
  
"He won't show weakness," Stingmon said from his side of the room, "but I still wish I could be out there." His arm blades flexed in and out of their sheathes.  
  
"Shut up," Datamon said, tapping keys intently. "We know how you feel. What's more important is finding out what the big guy out there took from that Chosen's body. The Regent's won this round." On the screen, the Regent had performed a quick double slash, catching the larger President across his left leg and hitting the claw again.  
  
"No, he hasn't," Agumon said quietly. The others turned to him in surprise; even Biyomon, across the room, seemed surprised by the little dinosaur's proclamation. "That's a Nightmare Claw that the President has on his arm. The Regent may be more skilled and have better control, but the bad guy's much bigger, and he only needs on hit."  
  
Angemon's face flickered once, and he turned to the computers behind him, entering in a few things. Stingmon watched him out of the corner of his eye.  
  
"A fight between a Betamon and a Teddymon," Piedmon mused into the air. "I don't agree with that, though, and I find your lack of faith disturbing. The President won't hit him, not unless the Regent does something abysmally stupid."  
  
Datamon, who'd been looking at the incoming stream of information in front of him, gasped a bit. "Does this qualify?"  
  
****  
  
Chardsy kept a loose eye on Mimi as he watched the battle rage on. As far as he could tell, Ken was winning; he'd hit the President a half a dozen times without being so much as scraped by the President's larger weapon. Still, Chardsy had cast a quick eye around and set his sights on a particularly large amplifier, in case things got a bit too out of hand. Mimi was still unconscious and didn't seem to be coming out of it anytime soon.  
  
"Damn, he's good," Chardsy whispered to the prone Mimi while watching Ken make a quick pass with his sword-thing, turning the President's weapon while striking inwards, managing to scrape the slower President along one side, then jumping artfully away from the returning furious claw slash. His saber flew through the air in a perfectly controlled slash, driving away the President's attempt to follow up his attack. Then the President did something unexpected; he backed off somewhat, panting, and gathered himself again. Ken did not give him the opportunity to catch his breath; he charged in with a massive swing, forcing the President's claw down, and drove his saber forwards, but the President was fast enough and swung his claw back upwards, not only parrying the attack but forcing the Regent back a step, almost taking off his head with the returning sweep.  
  
Coincidently, the President's flailing left hand happened to clip the streaming tail of Ken's hair, and the band fell off; much to Chardsy's amazement Ken's indigo hair didn't settle down, but rather rose up of its own accord, forming into a disorganized crown around his head, tinting itself dark blue as it did so. Chardsy's mouth dropped open slightly. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?" Unsurprisingly, Mimi didn't answer him.  
  
Whatever it meant, it seemed to signify that Ken was getting very aggressive, because with the first sound out of either combatant - a barely audible snarl - Ken leapt to the offensive, sword swinging at all points, seemingly coming from ten directions at once. It seemed like the President was having a tough time, too, but he somehow managed to keep his head despite the ferocity of Ken's shattering new attack, ducking and weaving as much as his claw was moving.  
  
****  
  
"Damn - not now!" Piedmon ran another eye over the screens and shook his head sharply. "You called it, Datamon. The Spore's pulling power from the Regent. But why?" The screens displayed the current energy balance inside of the Regent; the balance would influence his feelings, but was also determined by them to a degree. Normally he was perfectly balanced inside of it - equally dark and light, equally dominating and kindly. Right now, he was considerably closer to the darkness side of things than usual. Over at his computer, Angemon tapped a few more keys, watching a list scroll by. Beside him, Datamon snapped his fingers.  
  
"Of course - he's drawing on it to create the Saber!" Datamon tapped a few keys, and the relevant display came up on his monitor. "Here in the digital world the Spore must be able to... feed, or something like that, on the energy that just floats around. Out there, though," -- he waved a hand at the main display, which showed Ken smashing his fist into the side of the President's head -- "out there, there isn't any source of free-floating power for the Spore to eat --"  
  
Suddenly, Stingmon shot to his feet. "The keeper!" he exclaimed. "That's what he meant!"  
  
Agumon looked over at him. "Huh?" The others stopped what they were doing and gazed over at the suddenly active Stingmon.  
  
"When he got ready to leave, the Keeper had one of the Migotomon deliver his D-3 straight to the capital," Stingmon explained. "She had a message for him; she said that the Keeper wanted him to keep a careful lock on how much he relied on his Spore. I didn't really understand, since he's had it under control for so long..."  
  
Piedmon, greatly experienced in matters of darkness, got it first. "The device is changing him to suit its needs."  
  
"Right." Stingmon spread his hands helplessly. "I'm open to suggestions, people."  
  
Biyomon spoke first. "You're his partner digimon, Stingmon. It's your job to protect him, no matter what it takes." She flapped one wing, hopping over and landing on a railing next to him. "You have to reach out to him and tell him that what he's doing is wrong. It's hard, because he won't want to listen to you, but you have to keep at it."  
  
Angemon glanced up from his computer search. "But how, Biyo?"  
  
"Through the partner bond," she replied. The room became very quiet; the partner bond was a very close one, and observers would often comment on how Stingmon and the Regent would often seem to know what the other one was doing at any given time, but to suggest that it operated on such a direct level...  
  
Stingmon gave her a long and searching look, which she returned by staring levelly at him. After a moment, he responded, "I'll do it, but you'll have to tell me how."  
  
****  
  
The world was finally in order for Ken Ichijouji.  
  
In the heart of combat, everything is very black and white. There isn't any kind of gray zone or uncertainty in real combat; there are only simple, easily grasped concepts. Read: either one kills the other or the other kills the one. There isn't time for a lengthy debate or careful decision- making. In combat, there can be only one winner. That doesn't mean that a person can't think, but they're not going to spend time debating with themselves.  
  
That's where Ken Ichijouji found himself. Having trained almost every day for such an occasion (and having been kept sharp by incidents) he found himself not having to think -- all he had to do was react, and take what shots he could. His saber flashed, seemingly attacking the President from all directions at once, and the older man was hard-pressed to keep up with him. It wasn't like he had a chance, whispered a part of Ken; he's too slow and weak to possibly compare. Ken found himself agreeing with the little voice. He adopted a feral grin and, creating a second, larger energy saber in his left hand, leapt to the attack again. He had all the power he could ever want, now -- he felt it flowing through him, bending to anything he wanted.  
  
With two sabers at his command the President was no match for him. He simply batted the claw aside with one saber and struck downwards with another, carving a deep rent in the President's side and getting him to cry out for the first time. Ken spun around and took to the air, chuckling a bit, and brought both sabers down on the President's claw arm with enough force to spin him around like a top. Ken kicked out at the spinning President, sending him into the ground hard, laughing out loud as he did so. The President was prone on the ground, not moving, and Ken dismissed one saber while adding two feet of length to the other one, which flared with its black power, scorching the ground but not even giving Ken a warm feeling. He raised his giant blade to strike and --  
  
And suddenly there was another voice in his head. A very familiar one, at that. "Ken, stop!"  
  
He stopped swinging downwards. "Stingmon? Who gave you permission to be in my head?"  
  
"That doesn't matter, Ken!" Stingmon's voice sounded worried and impatient. "You've got to calm down. Put away the saber for a moment and let's talk."  
  
"Come again?" Ken asked. As he did he glanced at the fallen President; seeing him facedown and not moving he dismissed his second, elongated saber. It flickered away quietly leaving the room a bit darker.  
  
"We need to chat for a moment."  
  
"Make it quick," Ken bit out, grinning savagely down at the President. "I've got a job to finish."  
  
Stingmon paused for a moment. "Look, when I taught you how to fight with sabers way back when, what were the cardinal rules that I drove into you?"  
  
"How could that matter right now?"  
  
"Just answer me. It'll be obvious when you do."  
  
Ken shook his head, but answered anyway. "Here goes: force an opponent to defend so that you don't have to, keep moving -- "  
  
"Wrong rules. I'm talking about conduct here, Ken."  
  
He frowned. "That's pretty basic. Just respect the opponent's skill and never attack a person who can't fight back..." Ken trailed off after a minute, seeing where Stingmon was going with this. Still, Ken told himself, who was Stingmon to dare say anything about this? He couldn't possibly know what had happened. "You don't know the situation, Stingmon. Keep your opinions to yourself."  
  
"My opinion doesn't matter. The rules of conduct do."  
  
Righteous indignation mixed itself together with his own rushing feeling to form Ken's response. "This President person decided to rip the Sincerity sigil right out of that Chosen that my minion's watching over. He's violated any kind of honor I can imagine. I can't think of a better person to snuff out," he said, sneering down at the President's prone form.  
  
"Minion?" Stingmon asked quietly. "Ken, listen to yourself." Ken thought back over what he'd just said, and then shook his head sharply. It felt like something was inside his head and it was buzzing mildly. Funny, he hadn't noticed it before.  
  
"Slip of the tongue."  
  
"Was it?"  
  
"Of course..." Ken trailed off. The buzzing seemed to be much louder now. "Chardsy's my friend, and I owe him a lot for taking me in. He's no servant."  
  
"Then why'd you call him one?"  
  
"I told you, I just made a mistake. I am human, after all," Ken said with a trace of ancient bitterness.  
  
"You don't make that kind of mistake, Ken." Stingmon sounded weary. "You're not yourself right now."  
  
Despite himself, Ken stiffened. The last time Stingmon had said that was when he was still Wormmon, so long ago, when he had first come to the digital world. He'd tried to put the past behind him but it was part of him, so long as he stayed in the digital world, and he had found that he couldn't forget how he became what he was. "What do you mean?" he asked, as calmly as he could. Still, his voice wavered a bit.  
  
"You know what I mean." Was his voice fading? Ken couldn't tell over the buzzing. "You haven't been watching yourself, and you got carried away."  
  
Ken shook his head, trying to get the buzzing out... and then something clicked in the back of his head, filling him with a nameless dread. Deciding to ignore Stingmon for a moment he reached inward, questing, and eventually he found what he was looking for. 'Spore?'  
  
'It's too much!' the little creature wailed. Ken got the distinct impression of a man in an ocean, being swallowed up. 'I can't store it all, and you're not using it! I'm gonna drown!'  
  
With that simple check, Ken suddenly knew exactly what was going on; he'd been using the Spore for too long, and it ran out of power so it started to change his behavior so that he produced dark power for it; but when he stopped using it the power overwhelmed the little Spore. He looked around wildly, trying to find something large -- there! A pile of sandbags, evidently left over from constructions efforts. It would do. He reached within himself again, extending an arm and pulling on the energy. As he did he got a sense of how much power he'd created with his Spore's dubious help; the amount was enormous, far and away more than he'd ever generated without help. He suppressed a shudder, trying to forget how it was gathered. Ken grunted once, putting all his will into taking the dark energy he had and forcing it outwards --  
  
Abruptly he was pushed backwards as the energy exploded out of his palm in the form of a glowing black ball laced with dark green strands and a light pink outline. It struck the sandbags solidly and detonated, knocking everyone around and dropping Ken to his knees, exhausted by the effort. His Spore settled itself back, making a more contented murmuring; the buzzing in Ken's head went away immediately. Dust and sand billowed everywhere in hazy clouds.  
  
"Regent?!" a voice called out through his head -- Stingmon! "Are you there?"  
  
Ken coughed over the clouds, trying to ignore the tingle in his right hand. "Yeah," he managed. "I think we're all still -- "  
  
He cut off suddenly as a huge, looming form suddenly appeared out of the cloud, right above him; something swung down towards him and Ken gasped as he was caught and lifted into the air, sandwiched between two bony fingers and one giant thumb. He was held aloft for a brief second, staring into the bloodied but triumphant face of the President, but before he could marshal his wits the President's claw began to glow brightly and Ken had time for one brief moment of horrified realization before the claw exploded.  
  
****  
  
There was silence in the Command Center.  
  
A moment before, Biyomon had been given a brutally crushing hug from the much larger Stingmon, while Piedmon had slammed one fist into the other palm. Angemon had given a sigh of relief and sagged in his chair. Agumon had merely nodded and Datamon hadn't bothered given the situation a second glance before returning to his precious computers.  
  
Now, however, things were very grim. The Regent's connection with the digital world had been disrupted when the President had hit him with that exploding claw, sending the screen into an indistinct fuzz and the inhabitants into a panic, but it had become solid again a moment later leaving them an indifferent look at the Regent flat on his back in a tangle of cables and lighting equipment. A faint wisp of smoke was still rising from his body. Datamon insisted that he'd only been a bit burned and possibly given a concussion but he was being ignored by all of the others. Stingmon had probably taken things harder than the others, but Angemon and Agumon certainly didn't like things either. Datamon had kept an eye on the Regent's vital signs while watching the show. Biyomon had perched on Stingmon's left arm and was apparently trying to get him to focus, while Piedmon...  
  
Piedmon sat there, grinning sardonically.  
  
Agumon was the first to notice, but that wasn't entirely accidental; despite his conversion to the generally perceived forces of good Agumon always kept a close eye on Piedmon. "What's so funny?" the dinosaur demanded. All eyes turned to Piedmon, who was watching the screen and chortling.  
  
"Irony is funny," the clown digimon managed over his chuckling. "The President just made the same mistake that the Regent did."  
  
"How do you figure that?!" Stingmon shouted. He did, however, keep enough control over himself to not wave his arms and upset Biyomon's perch.  
  
"Watch," Piedmon said. "It'll be obvious in a moment."  
  
Angemon was the first to disengage his gaze from Piedmon's face, turning to watch the screen; the rest of them followed suit a moment later. On the screen, they could see the President standing up, with both arms human now; he replaced his jacket, shot his cuffs. All of the hits that the Regent had managed to land during the fight had been healed over. He took a moment to collect himself, and then started forwards toward the downed Regent.  
  
He got about ten feet before the huge black piece of equipment slammed into him from his left side, sending him spinning into the ground. It was quickly followed up by both a second large device, which smashed into the downed President's left leg, and a black man, already laden with one body, who ran toward the Regent and hefted him onto his shoulder. The oddly dressed man didn't wait around for the President to rally, but ran for the hallway instead. In the Command Center Piedmon nodded his approval, his sardonic grin never departing his face, and reached for the microphone amid the staring and dropped jaws.  
  
****  
  
Chardsy ran. Burdened by both the relatively light Mimi and the not-so- light Ken he charged down the empty hallways under the stage, trying to make it back out to where he and Ken had first emerged. Along the way he'd dropped any pretense of trying to make sense of the situation. People with crystal things inside of them, the President of the evil Odaiba Group growing a giant claw-thing, this new digital world guy fighting back with some kind of weird black sword thing... it was too much to for Chardsy to try and understand right then. Running was more important.  
  
But where to? There was no telling where a safe place could be found. Chardsy was relatively sure that he wasn't being followed, but the President ran a huge corporation; his men would be all over the place, just waiting for Ken and any of his accomplices to emerge before they brought the heavy end of the hammer down. Chardsy slowed down to a walk and ducked inside what looked to be a small equipment room as he considered his next move. He placed Ken in a sitting position next to a large box and gently set Mimi down. As Ken landed on the floor a little black device bounced out from Ken's pockets and slid over, stopping next to one of the machines. Absently Chardsy picked it up as he glanced around the room, looking for some kind of inspiration.  
  
Briefly, his gaze passed over Ken. The guy didn't look too good; he had a large, ugly burn over his entire midsection and while it wasn't bleeding it was still smoking a bit. He'd passed out, probably from being tossed around the room, and Chardsy was pretty certain that he wasn't going to wake up anytime soon. Unfortunately for Ken, Chardsy had no knowledge of first aid at all, outside of Band-Aids and the occasional Ace bandage, so cooling off burns was out of his league.  
  
The only other thing that was lit up in the equipment room was a large black box that occupied the far corner of the room. It had a few backlit displays, one of which was marked by the inscription OD-EDR-3-1.45. The only other display was marked DRN: 60% TIME: 22:00 RNG: Omni. Chardsy took another look at it before the display clicked in his mind: it was an Odaiba Group draining reactor! He glanced at his watch and noted the time: 9:45 PM. That only gave him fifteen minutes! He looked around with a new sense of urgency.  
  
The little black thing beeped. Chardsy glanced down at it but didn't spend any time looking closely; his mind was still trying to figure out how to escape. He ran over what equipment he had on him, but he was pretty sure that a watch and a few dollars weren't going to be of much use for either flight or waking up one of his passengers.  
  
The little black thing beeped again, more insistently this time, and Chardsy glanced at it again. This time he saw the flashing button. How'd he miss that before? He slapped it and the higher of the two little screens on the device flickered, then cleared up abruptly to show a nightmare image on the screen; the face of possibly the most demented clown that Chardsy had ever dreamed, a painted and scarred face painted white and black. A pair of black eyes glittered out at him. It was all Chardsy could do to keep hold of the little device.  
  
It got worse when the clown started talking. "Chardsy, is it?"  
  
"Uh... yeah, that's me." Chardsy said tonelessly. He was feeling rather overwhelmed by the whole mess, and the demon clown wasn't helping matters any. "Who the hell are you?"  
  
"Language, my boy. I am Piedmon -- " here he dipped his head slightly, " -- and I need you to do a few things if you'd like to see your friends there safe." Piedmon had a contemptuous way of speaking that set Chardsy on edge, and the brutal scowl that graced his features only added to the evil image that the clown radiated.  
  
"Yeah? What the hell do you know?" Chardsy bit back, feeling a bit more centered.  
  
"Quite a bit. I've been watching from here, you know," Piedmon replied matter-of-factly. "It's rather obvious that you won't make it too far at the rate you're going."  
  
"What's that supposed to mean?"  
  
"You're sitting in an equipment room," Piedmon deadpanned.  
  
Chardsy glanced around again. He was indeed sitting in an equipment room. "Good job," he shot back. "Whaddya want me to do?"  
  
Piedmon brightened up a bit -- that is, his scowl lightened ever-so- slightly -- and he responded, "First, find a monitor." Chardsy glanced around wildly before he found one, sitting against a far corner. It wasn't plugged into either a computer or the wall. The reactor on the far side began to hum a bit; dismayed, Chardsy looked at his watch. It was 9:50.  
  
"Found one, but it doesn't have any power," Chardsy answered. "We gotta do this quick. The Odaiba Group's all set to suck the life outta this whole area."  
  
That actually got Piedmon to adopt a confused expression. "I don't follow you."  
  
"They've got one of their reactor things set up in here, and if I know the Odaiba Group, this won't be the only one," Chardsy explained. "I guess that they've planned this whole thing out -- they'd get the crystal thing out of Tachikawa back there and then drain the crowd dry. Wait, that doesn't make sense; they can't push dark power on this scale, can they? Ken says that they gotta replace what they take."  
  
"Save the brainstorming for later," Piedmon snapped. He had his scowl back out again, and it was no more pleasant this time. "Just find a plug for the monitor and get it turned on." It took Chardsy a moment to find an electric outlet in all the clutter, but he eventually switched it on.  
  
"What now?" Chardsy asked.  
  
Piedmon seemed to look behind him, but on the screen it wasn't very clear. After a moment's pause he turned around and looked towards Chardsy again. "You're going to have to wake the Regent up."  
  
"Who?"  
  
"The guy behind you."  
  
Chardsy turned and looked at the fallen Ken. "He's kinda out of it."  
  
Piedmon shook his head. "Congratulations. Still, you need to wake him up."  
  
"Why?"  
  
"He's the only one who can use that D-3!" Piedmon snapped. "You can only listen to what I tell you, but he's capable of using it to its fullest extent." Chardsy's lip twitched, but he walked over and prodded Ken gently in the side of his head. Nothing happened. Chardsy then reached over and pinched Ken's nose shut. After a moment Ken suddenly came to, thrashing as much as he was able, pushing Chardsy's fingers away quickly. He coughed for a moment, then looked around.  
  
"What happened?" he managed to croak out, dazed.  
  
"Later," Piedmon snapped from the D-3's miniature screen. "Right now you've got to open a portal here - the Odaiba Group's all set to drain the stadium right down to nothing."  
  
Ken came as fully awake as he was capable; he sat up abruptly, then immediately fell backwards again, curling an arm around his burnt midsection. He coughed once, thickly, and then got himself under control again. "Okay. Chardsy, where's that Chosen from earlier?"  
  
"You mean Tachikawa, right?"  
  
"Yeah."  
  
"Right behind you." Ken turned and saw the prone form of Mimi laid out against a nearby speaker. He nodded once and then held out his palm expectantly; Chardsy placed the D-3 into his hand, then turned and picked up Mimi just as carefully as before. His watch read 9:56.  
  
He thrust it towards the monitor and said simply, "Open," and a swirl of light and colors reached out and sucked the three of them into the digital world.  
  
****  
  
"Get those Seals powered down, now!" Datamon roared into the mic. On the monitor now was the Pyramid complex, out in the Server desert, and the busy forms of Gazimon could be seen on the screen trying desperately to power down the six giant globes that kept the digital world safe from invasion. The usual humming that was coming from them was a bit lower than usual, but it wasn't nearly low enough to get anybody other than the Regent through the gates. Killing the Regent's incoming guests would be a very bad precedent to set.  
  
"We're trying, boss!" one of the Gazimon wailed in the general direction of the camera. "They just can't come down this fast!" Datamon made a frustrated noise but let the guy off the hook, focusing instead on his own task. On a display mounted on his console he could see both a representation of the Seals' current effective overlapping zones and the Regent's party's progress. They were disturbingly close to the Seals and Datamon worked the keyboard, trying to find a way to cut down the Seals' levels fast enough.  
  
The rest of the Command Center was quiet, watching the monkey robot work. Stingmon and Biyomon were still, one on the other's wrist. Piedmon kept pulling out swords and fiddling with them. Agumon was quiet, but every now and then he'd blow a miniature Pepper Breath into the air. Angemon would then raise his rod and stop the attack before it got too far. The tension in the room was palpable.  
  
"It's not fast enough," Datamon whispered to himself, and indeed according to his displays it was not; the Regent's party was far too close to the Seals to allow them to come down. If he'd just had five more minutes - no, he wouldn't waste time wondering. He set himself to his task with a new spark and tapped furiously on his console's controls. Wait - an idea had just occurred to him; it wasn't pretty, but - "Gazimon! Recalibrate the Seals so that they are set to bounce rather than oscillate!" The team on the monitor suddenly stopped what they were doing and reacted, going to different controls and entering in new commands.  
  
Abruptly the tip of his tail was nicked by something sharp. Datamon turned quickly and realized that Piedmon was holding a fifteen-foot-long sword; its tip was carefully held right in front of him. Despite himself, he paled a bit. "Care to explain?" Piedmon asked conversationally.  
  
"Sure. If the Seals are set to bounce, they'll just knock the Regent's party around rather than kill them outright, and they'll have a smaller effective radius. Less dangerous, you know." That satisfied Piedmon who banished the sword immediately. Datamon turned back around, determined to both do his duty and regain his dignity.  
  
"Get a few teams ready to receive them," Agumon said into the open air. "If he hits a Bounce Seal there's no telling where he'll end up." Angemon leaned over and started talking into the microphone he was seated next to. Datamon glanced down at his screen again and was suddenly galvanized by what it innocuously showed him.  
  
"The Regent's right on top of the Seals!" Datamon shouted. "He's gonna hit at least one of them!"  
  
****  
  
All in all, Miyako was having an unusual week, even by her revolutionary standards. Having her friends captured and taken away was almost traumatizing. Breaking and entering into the Odaiba Group headquarters was certainly an adventure in and of itself. She was still having momentary flashbacks to Gatomon, her blotchy fur, the painful and avenging look in her eyes as she slashed out. Getting sent back to the digital world, the alternate dimension that she'd fought and failed to save, was almost the icing on the cake; that title was reserved for the fact that the digital world had somehow managed to throw the mantle of the Emperor off by itself. Now, she walked through the central complex of the digital world's government in a shambling daze. None of this should have been possible!  
  
Aquilamon had run ahead, to consult with his assistants, and that was for the best as far as Miyako was concerned; she could see that he wasn't the same fawning Hawkmon that she'd lost so many years ago to Milleniumon's cruelty. No, he'd grown up in this odd new world and found his own place. He didn't need her any longer, and it hurt to admit that. It hurt to admit that the world didn't need her anymore. It'd run just as well with her as without. The very location she was in confirmed her own thoughts - a massive place that was too large and ornately detailed to have been built by human hands. Pillars and gold wrappings were the hallmark of the building.  
  
As she was walking along thinking those thoughts, mired in gloom, she walked with her head down, long lavender hair spilling over the front of her face and obscuring her eyesight. It was probably because of her hair that she failed to see the odd distortion in the air until she was right on top of it. She drew back, surprised despite herself; the air in front of her seemed to shimmer, as if there was something there that was just out of her eyesight. She strained, trying to figure out what it was -  
  
The shimmer abruptly coalesced into the outline of a vague figure. It was vague because it was moving through the air right at her, and before she'd had the presence of mind to move it crashed headlong into her, sending her sprawling down onto the floor with the mystery figure sliding off to her right side. She shook her head, trying to clear it, then glanced angrily at the figure to her right - and promptly forgot about everything, from the President of the Odaiba Group on down. For lying next to her, face in some sort of distress, was the lord and king of all of the hottest men that had ever lived. He had perfect indigo hair and a perfect solid build and just the right height and his face was built in just the right way and even though he had just appeared out of the air right in front of her and knocked her down she'd forgive him in a heartbeat!  
  
Then reality came crashing back in, along with another two people who'd appeared slightly farther down the hall. One of them, a red-haired woman, had collapsed immediately; the other, a black guy wearing an odd combination of clothes, fell over but struggled back to his feet. Reality also appeared when Miyako realized that her hands, which she'd flung in front of her to push the hottie off, had somehow turned black. She took a closer look at the guy and sucked in a horrified breath when she saw an enormous burn of some sort, one that extended over his front and sides at his midsection but didn't quite reach his back. Whatever had given it to him had charred his shirt in the same area, putting holes in it. Miyako reacted immediately; she pulled out the flask that Bishojo, the Migotomon, had given her and, pulling the cork off, she doused the wound liberally with the stuff. It was thicker than water but not by much and after a moment she'd covered the entire area of the wound. She stepped back to see what would come about.  
  
After a short moment something happened; all of the pain on the guy's face dropped off immediately while the burn began to recede, fading away and shrinking at the same time. Miyako's left hand reached up to rub her shoulder while she watched the formerly hideous burn simply go away, as if something had scolded it sharply. Which, in a way, was true. She was so focused on the guy and the gone burn that she didn't notice the black guy run over until he was right next to her. "Hey, what'd you just do? The dude's burnt!"  
  
She gestured offhandedly, in a bit of shock herself. "See for yourself," she said faintly. The black man's staring was interrupted, however, by a sudden onslaught of loud digimon, pouring down the hallway towards them. She and her new companion were roughly pushed aside by a team of Kiwimon, bearing a pair of stretchers with their beaks, followed by a Wizardmon in very unusual garb; rather than the grays and blues of the rest of his brethren he was wearing a white doctor's coat over a turquoise outfit. The straw had had been replaced by a doctors' cap, still bearing the skull.  
  
"Hey, wait a minute!" she yelled over their noise. "He's already fine! I fixed his burn right up!" The black guy took another long, jaw-open look at her. The digimon ignored her, with the exception of the Wizardmon, who floated up and looked her in the eye. The Kiwimon loaded the hot guy onto a stretcher, much to Miyako's dismay, along with the redhead.  
  
"What did you use?" he asked, turning a critical eye on her.  
  
"Uh, this stuff I got from a Migotomon," she said hesitantly. "She called it Essence of Light."  
  
The Wizardmon nodded once, then turned to the Kiwimon. "Change of plans: to his chambers, rather than the ward. He'll need time to sleep off what this person has given him. The Chosen's still headed for the ward." The Kiwimon holding the man simply changed direction and continued scampering off with the stretcher. The Wizardmon turned in place and started floating away, following the Kiwimon bearing the redhead.  
  
He stopped when Miyako yelled, "Wait! Who is that guy, anyway?"  
  
"That would be the Regent of the digital world," he answered. "You both seem to be humans. If you'd like, you may follow me." Having said that he floated away, leaving Miyako and the black guy to pursue him.  
  
****  
  
He arrived without fanfare, simply walking in from the helipad, in the middle of the morning. Gatomon had been going over the reports from the energy collectors and didn't notice his quiet entrance until he'd entered the room. "Oh!" she said. "I didn't think you'd be back so soon."  
  
"Neither did I," the President replied. "I had to cut my visit to America short."  
  
"Really. The military representatives will be very upset at that," she said, but quieted at the look on his face. He only got that look when he was very displeased with something, and considering what he'd gone to do, there was only one thing that could have gone wrong. "Did you manage to extract the Sincerity power?"  
  
As an answer he lifted a hand; like magic the Sigil, a smallish crystal glowing faintly green, manifested itself in his palm. "Yes, I got that." Having said that he walked over to a small cabinet mounted to the column that constituted the center of his office and opened it carefully. Inside, winking out at him, were four other crystals much like the one he held in his hand. On the far left was small crystal glowing silver: Knowledge. To its right was one that glowed a very light orange: Courage. All the way on the right was a third crystal, giving off a soft red light: Love. And in the middle, on the second row all the way to the right, was a fourth crystal, shining yellow: Friendship. The President deposited the green crystal he was holding into a slot on the left side of the second row. He took a step back, admiring their harmony of colors, then closed the cabinet.  
  
"If you've got that, then what's the problem?" the little cat asked. She'd already seen her fill of Sigils and she wasn't as awed by them as the President was. Her question, however, did have the desired effect; it brought the President back down to Earth. He walked over and sat in his chair, behind the desk. Gatomon had her own chair.  
  
"The problem is what the Emperor sent over," the President said softly.  
  
Gatomon's eyes went wide. "You found out? What did he send?"  
  
"Nothing. He came through himself!" the President declared. Gatomon pulled back, shocked and somewhat frightened.  
  
"Here? As in on Earth? That's." she trailed off.  
  
"That's crazy, I know. I don't know why he'd decide to take the first step himself." The President shook his head. "He's far more powerful than a mere human. I created a Nightmare Claw to defend myself with and he hit me a dozen times!"  
  
"You're still alive," Gatomon pointed out.  
  
"I had the Sincerity sigil to back me up. I healed over what he did to me, but he still managed to force my hand. I had to flee or be taken by the ED reactors."  
  
"An excellent drain, by the way. We got more power in a few seconds there than we get off the entire East Coast in a month." Gatomon looked distinctly pleased, like the mythical cat that ate the canary. "We should do more of that sort of thing."  
  
The President shook his head again. "It's tempting, I know, but the slower drain-and-replace style fits my agenda better than trying to drain them all at once." Gatomon remained silent. "Don't tell me you're still trying to guess my end goal?"  
  
"I am a cat," she replied. "That's what I do."  
  
"Don't bother."  
  
"Will the Emperor throw a bone into your 'agenda'?"  
  
The President paused, considering that. He had powers unbeknownst to Gatomon and he'd been using them during his fight with the Emperor. He could tell exactly what had happened with the darkness inside of the now mature Ichijouji and what had produced it. It was a Dark Spore, which had been one of the few creations of Milleniumon not completely devoted towards killing things. It was an energy battery, but when it ran out of power, it would force the host to supply the dark power necessary for it to continue storing power. If he got a grip on that Dark Spore, the President mused, then he would be able to complete his agenda easily. He could also discern the emotional change that had come over Ichijouji, but he swore to himself never to tell Gatomon that. It wouldn't do to have her want to show mercy.  
  
Out loud, he said, "I think I can find a way for him to fit into my agenda quite nicely."  
  
**** 


	10. Contact

PAUSE FOR BOURGEOIS LEGALITIES "Digimon" and all characters and situations contained within are copyrighted trademarks of Bandai, Saban Entertainment and Upper Deck. Permission is hereby granted by the author to reproduce this document unless you try to make money off of it; if so, please contact me first at Calcite_McWhalen@hotmail.com. I may be a grown-up cartoon fan but I do know my way around Title 17.  
  
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Contact  
  
****  
  
If there was one thing that distinguished the Capital building from its companions in the real world it was probably its scope. The Capital building had been designed by the Regent for governing the entire digital world, a place with astonishing variance in form and ability, and as such was suited to fit thousands of differing digimon. To accomplish this the building itself was enormous -- far more so than its compatriots in the real world -- and was staffed by digimon who numbered in the thousands. That meant that if a visitor didn't know where they were going, they'd be quite lost very quickly unless they had a guide.  
  
Miyako had a guide, but the floating Wizardmon was moving quickly after the Kiwimon and their cargo, trying to see to his patient. She was having a devil of a time following the creature and it didn't help that everything from a giant Monochromon to a small army of tiny Mushmon had managed to interpose themselves between her and Wizardmon. As for the Wizardmon himself, he was a receding image of a white laboratory coat and messily tied hair who was certainly not slowing down for a pair of concerned humans. Just for that, Miyako resolved to keep up.  
  
As for her newly acquired compatriot, the black man, he was winded -- apparently he'd been running earlier -- but it was obvious that it would take most of the digimon in the palace to stop him. Miyako had decided to follow the Wizardmon after her running friend revealed that the redhead the Kiwimon had hauled out of the atrium where she'd met both the black man and possibly the world's most attractive guy alive was actually a Chosen, like she was. That meant that she'd gotten in somehow, and if Miyako could figure it out she'd be out of this world and back home in a heartbeat. She was trying not to think about what could have happened in her absence but her mind kept running over the possible scenarios and they weren't good.  
  
Lost in her musings for a critical second she missed it when the Wizardmon cut an abrupt right turn and charged off in a different direction. Fortunately the black man didn't pause a second and cut the same turn, giving Miyako something to follow. She chose that time, pulled up alongside him, to introduce herself. "I'm Miyako. Who are you?"  
  
"Chardsy," he shouted over, not looking at her. "We gotta keep up -- they's sayin' Tachikawa's a Chosen or somethin', and that she's --"  
  
He got about that far before Miyako finally reacted. "Mimi?!"  
  
Chardsy looked over at her in surprise. "You know her?"  
  
"We knew each other when we were kids," Miyako explained breathlessly. What was Mimi doing here? Miyako had tried to follow her music career, but with the hubbub of running a revolution she hadn't listened to much music lately. She could keenly remember feeling like Mimi was a kindred spirit to her, somebody who'd completely understand what she did and why she did it. Meanwhile Chardsy was looking a bit overwhelmed, shaking his head as he ran.  
  
"What is it with this place?" Miyako looked over at him as they ran around a irate tripped Tyrannomon. How long were they going to have to run? "Everyone else knows each other."  
  
"We came here a long time ago, when we were kids, but we left this place behind when... when bad things happened." Chardsy didn't comment on that. "Why'd they bring Mimi here?"  
  
Chardsy's mouth twitched. "She got attacked by the Odaiba Group's President."  
  
Miyako was able to keep running, but not by much. "What? Why?!"  
  
"I don't know -- me and Ken were late to the party." Ken? Miyako thought that name sounded... familiar somehow. Where had she heard it before, in connection with the digital world? All of her memories from her past experiences in the digital world were oddly hazy when she tried to think about them, but the name Ken reached through the mists of her mind and stirred something ancient. A memory of a person, shrouded in the darkness of her mind... Miyako managed to keep her mind away from it, dismissing the odd sentiments.  
  
Chardsy broke up her flash of memory to shout, "Quick, there he goes!" Miyako looked forward quickly enough to see the Wizardmon twist in mid-air and fly into an antechamber off of the main hallway. Dodging a curious Mekanorimon she cut to her left and pulled ahead of the tired Chardsy, making it to the chamber.  
  
It was about what she'd expected -- a whitewashed medical ward of some sort, with the floating Wizardmon coasting into the back. Miyako ran over to the counter where a bored Gizamon was flipping through pages in a book. "Hey, wake up!"  
  
The Gizamon gave a start, looking over at the panting and anxious Miyako, and put his book aside. "All this running today. Well, what -" He stopped suddenly, looking at Miyako and the approaching Chardsy with an expression that was nothing short of stupefied. Miyako sighed impatiently and, reaching over the counter, shook him hard. It worked. "Hey, you're both humans! Whoa! When have we had outside humans lately?"  
  
That was not the reaction that Miyako was looking for. Losing patience quickly, she yelled, "I want to go see Mimi!"  
  
That wasn't the reaction that he was looking for either.  
  
"Let a human into the medical chamber? No way! That's expressly for-- " He cut off because Miyako had picked him up, all thirty pounds of him, and was staring him straight in the eye.  
  
"Listen, you little rabbit-thing, I want to see Mimi and I want to see her now!" she bellowed at him, and dropped him back into his chair.  
  
"I can't do that! I'd get fired for sure!" He was standing firm but his voice was wavering and he was looking wildly around himself for assistance. Miyako didn't notice what he was doing; her attention was focused directly in front of her on the Gizamon, and he wasn't going anywhere. Let him look.  
  
"Uh, you might want to calm down," Chardsy whispered to her urgently, glancing around.  
  
She spun around, intent on letting this guy know exactly where he stood, and stopped cold at the sight of a pair of tall, angry-looking Drimogemon staring her down. Both of them wore silver-lined blue rings on their left arms. One of them happened to be cleaning his nose drill with his left hand drill thoughtfully, the conflicting whirs driving home their point exactly.  
  
"Oh, crap," Chardsy whispered out. Miyako found herself glancing from a suddenly smug Gizamon to a terrified Chardsy to the angry Drimogemon to the crowd her attack had gathered, and suddenly realized that she'd gone a bit beyond her rights here. "You just had to let him have it, didn't ya?"  
  
Miyako's flicking glances finally found something for her to put her hope onto - Aquilamon! He was near the ceiling and diving fast, and with startled exclamations from both humans he landed right in front of them, standing between them and the two Drimogemon. Much to Miyako's surprise the Drimogemon pulled back at a glare from Aquilamon, nodding respectfully to him as they did so, and began to clear the crowd out. Aquilamon turned his piercing gaze on Miyako, but she beat him to the punch. "Where did you go?"  
  
"I was looking for the Regent," he said. "His re-entry into the digital world didn't go according to plan."  
  
"I'll say," Chardsy muttered.  
  
"Don't worry about him," Miyako said, voice becoming slightly vague, eyes unfocusing slightly. "I already ran into him, and one of the digimon here had him sent to his chambers."  
  
Aquilamon's head jerked up suddenly. "What? He was badly injured! He needs to be in the medical ward!"  
  
"I took care of his wound," Miyako proclaimed. "It wasn't that bad, and the stuff that the Keeper's friend gave me worked just fine!" Aquilamon's eye twitched. "Now can you get this little rabbit out of my way?"  
  
"I'd forgotton what you were like," he muttered to himself, but not quite quietly enough; Miyako heard him.  
  
"What does that mean!" she demanded, hands on hips.  
  
"Nothing," he said, quick to reassure her. "I just. missed you, a lot." The giant hawk glanced down at his feet, ashamed. "Being away from you for six years had dulled your voice in my mind a bit." His voice was soft, and Miyako felt her heart going out to the hawk. She ran a hand over his soft down, hidden under his stiffer armor feathers, and felt his powerful but tense muscles relax ever-so-slightly under her gentle touch.  
  
"Who's your friend?" Chardsy asked brightly from behind her. She half-turned and, pulling her hand free from his feathers, motioned to Aquilamon.  
  
"This is Aquilamon," she said. "He's the chief of police around here, and my partner digimon too," she added proudly. "Aquilamon, this is Chardsy. He came in at the same time as the Regent did."  
  
Chardsy walked over to Aquilamon, extended a hand. "Hey. What's goin' on?"  
  
"Not much," Aquilamon grunted back. "Pretty much the usual around here, except for this crazy Regent thing."  
  
"That's gotta be rough. Feel like chillin' a bit after this blows over?" Chardsy said.  
  
"Sure - I know this little hole-in-the-wall in town that's just --"  
  
"Okay, now can we get inside?" Miyako asked impatiently, interrupting them. Inside, she was a bit put off; Aquilamon was HER partner digimon, thank you. For his part Aquilamon all but jumped getting to the Gizamon.  
  
"Gizamon!" Aquilamon said. "I'd like to see the guest."  
  
"I wish I could let you go through, believe me," the Gizamon replied, glancing at the still-irate Miyako. "For now, though, until the Regent himself gives orders otherwise, I can't let anyone in." Aquilamon drew back, nodding politely to the Gizamon, and strode down to the others.  
  
"Well?" Chardsy asked.  
  
"Sorry, but the brass's put the guest off-limits for now." Aquilamon shook his head, disgusted. "Stingmon's always been paranoid. Can't wait until the Regent gets off his ass so we can get somewhere."  
  
Miyako managed not to stomp out her frustration on the marble floor. "Can't you get us in there anyway?"  
  
"I don't like to fight losing battles, Miyako," he responded. "If I can't win, I'm not going to put my neck on the line." He held up a claw to stop her retort. "I'm a strong Adult-level, sure, but I'm just an Adult- level. The palace is swarming with them, not to mention that most of the Administrators are in town and they're all Perfect-level or Mega-level. I'd get demoted and they'd imprison the two of you."  
  
Chardsy said, "That ain't cool," rather faintly.  
  
Any further conversation between the three of them was forestalled immediately when Miyako turned around, trying to come with an answer, and caught sight of the armored figure of Angemon soaring across the open pavilion. To her the angel was enormous, all white feathers and shielded torso and outstretched rod and the raw beauty of the angel took her breath away. She couldn't tear her gaze away from him until he hit the ground with a light tap, a few feet in front of the little party.  
  
Chardsy was about as stunned as Miyako was, but Aquilamon was quick to recognize his friend. "Angemon! What do you want?"  
  
He didn't respond at first, just glanced over the party, his eyes eventually settling onto Miyako. He raised one delicately crafted eyebrow. Miyako was suddenly haunted by the distinct feeling that he was surprised, unpleasantly so, and that he didn't have any intention of being surprised, ever, until that very moment. At length, he switched his gaze over to Aquilamon. "How long?" he asked in a disapproving tone.  
  
"Oh, about a day," Aquilamon responded conversationally. "She arrived over at the Keeper's Chamber and he arranged to fly her out here. I've been giving her the tour since then. What happened to the Regent, anyway?"  
  
"Can't tell you in this company. However, I can cure that particular problem and fill you right in." Angemon turned his head slightly to the left and spoke into a shoulder-mounted communicator for a moment. As soon as he was done, a bright flash resounded throughout the halls of the palace, and when it had cleared Miyako had her view of a terrifically ugly digimon; one that was more blue brains and head than anything else. It looked over Miyako and Chardsy appraisingly, leering at them.  
  
Aquilamon shook his head. "Must we? We could just ask them, you know."  
  
"Stingmon's in charge," the angel answered wryly. "Boys and girls, this is Vademon." He indicated the digimon behind him. "He's going to ask you two a few questions."  
  
****  
  
The Regent was dreaming.  
  
In his dream, he had been sent to the Real World on an improbable errand to investigate the lost Internet and found a drained world, one that had succumbed to the powers of darkness in the form of an evil corporation, the Odaiba Group. He dreamed that he found a new friend, a human, and a new quest: restore that broken world. He dreamed that he went to a - a concert, that was the word - and at this concert he met his match: the President of the evil Odaiba Group. He dreamed that he dueled the evil man and defeated him, only to almost fall to the darkness within himself. He dreamed that he loosed the darkness within himself in an attack that terrified even himself, and in his relief at getting rid of it he let his guard down. He dreamed that the evil President made him pay for that, and sent him into a wall with an exploding weapon.  
  
He dreamed that he was falling, and the light above was growing dimmer; the darkness reached up with tendrils of itself, pulling him down into its inky expanse. He dreamed that while he couldn't escape himself the chains were effortlessly broken by... a beautiful angel? Yes, one of light, with dark flowing hair clad in a elegant gown of white; he couldn't make out her face. She latched onto his arms, pulling him up away from the darkness, toward the light above...  
  
And Ken woke up.  
  
He was lying in his bed, in his suite, at the Capitol Building. He wasn't wearing much and his hair was askew; he was without his equipment. He sat up, glancing around, and suddenly realized something: his torso wasn't burnt from the President's cruel grasp. In fact, his torso was looking remarkably whole. The scar he'd gotten last year calming down a Scorpiomon was gone, as was the one from three years ago when he and Piedmon had tried to spar. He shook his head at the memory; going toe-to- toe with a Mega was a foolish idea and he should have known better.  
  
He took a quick glance around at his room. While he may have been the Regent, with the resources of an entire world at his beck and call, he hadn't seen any reason to abuse that for his own gain and as such the small room was more or less bare. He had a simple bed, and a simple dresser, and an adjoining bathroom; he also had, on one wall, a map of the entire digital world, laid out for specie location and resource allocation. He often spent a few moments in front of the map at the beginning of the day, trying to figure out how to solve the day's problems.  
  
Ken took a moment to reminisce over the crazy dream. He didn't dream much anymore; his responsibilities oftentimes left him completely drained, able only to stumble into bed. He shook his head again, trying clear out the cobwebs, and found himself contemplating the angel. Beautiful, and not a digimon-type angel either; this one was a complete unknown to him. He found himself replaying the scene in his mind, being brought into the light, and forced himself to stop. It was probably just a human thing anyway, something he'd have to overcome when he did his job.  
  
He tried to stand but his body just wouldn't allow it, and he collapsed back onto the bed. He wasn't in any kind of pain, but he certainly felt very weak. He sighed. It was no wonder why he had dreamed, now; the extended weakness after a major healing could only be the work of a vial of Essence of Light. That stuff was a potent healing agent but it just couldn't stand to see somebody in any kind of pain -- it had a minor sort of sentience -- and it would try to cure emotional pain as well. Only the Keeper made an effort to manufacture the potion and he didn't give the secret away to anybody. Inwardly, Ken sighed. He'd have to visit the Keeper and discharge the new debt he had made.  
  
Ken thought: 'Spore?'  
  
He didn't receive a response. Internally, he could sense the presence of the Spore, but it seemed to be all but drained to nothing by his last series of adventures. He glanced down at his hands, remembering the power and its corrupting nature. Ken knew exactly what had happened in the fight with the President; he'd given in to his darker side, and the Spore was a conduit for the Emperor to emerge. He shuddered, ever so briefly. He'd have to come up with a new way to do things. The Spore was getting to be too dangerous.  
  
Ken's mental sorting was broken up by the door opening quietly and then flying open as Stingmon peeked his head inside. "Ken! You're already awake?"  
  
"Yeah, I'm awake," Ken replied. "I'm still working on up."  
  
It wasn't often that an eight foot insect almost crushed Ken with his weight, but that was exactly what happened as Stingmon charged into the room and swept up his partner human in an almost bone-crushing hug, ignoring Ken's muffled protests. "Azulongmon, Ken, don't do that to me! I thought you'd been killed or worse!"  
  
"That's great," Ken managed to gasp out, "but I can't breathe!" Realizing what he was doing, Stingmon dropped Ken back onto the bed.  
  
The insect then took a closer look at Ken. "You look like yourself now."  
  
"I feel like it," Ken said. "I know how close I was, Sting." Stingmon didn't respond to that, preferring to just glance at Ken's face and then look away, worried. Ken spent a moment studying his partner's face. After eight years of being partners, through good times and bad, they had established quite the rapport for understanding what the other was doing and thinking, and Ken could tell that his partner was worried that he'd revert back to what he had been, once upon a time. Ken spent a long pause reassuring Stingmon with silence.  
  
After a moment Ken asked, "How'd you contact me?"  
  
"Biyomon instructed me in the ways of the partner bond," Stingmon said wryly. "I didn't know that I could use it to talk to you directly, but once I tried it the concept just came easily. I could do it any number of times, now."  
  
"You stay out of my head," Ken said warningly. "I don't need anything else up there."  
  
"No promises," Stingmon grunted out.  
  
Ken cocked his head to one side. "Does it work both ways?"  
  
Stingmon didn't even twitch. "You'd have to ask Biyomon about that."  
  
"I don't think I need the help," Ken pressed. "If I recall correctly, you said that the concept is simple to understand. Since you've been in my head before I can just recreate the feeling and divine what I need from that." Stingmon was looking somewhat more nervous now. Ken had a flash of intuition -- "I don't know, though. I doubt that I'd find much beyond a certain pink bird..."  
  
Stingmon's normally solid green face seemed to turn a darker shade of green, and he seemed taken aback. "Well, I do owe her a bit," the insect managed lamely.  
  
Ken shook his head. "Good luck, partner. You're gonna need it; she's a heartbreaker. So, what's been happening here in the digital world since the last time we talked?"  
  
Stingmon relaxed a bit, now that he was back on solid territory. "Oh, just about everything."  
  
****  
  
"You took the initiative," the President began, hands clasped in front of him, arms resting on his desk. In front of him stood one of his three Assistants, nervously picking at the sleeves of her red dress, glasses off and hat hung on the rack near the elevator entrance. Her silver hair was pinned up in a functional and otherwise unimpressive bun, a few uncooperative wisps hanging down across her face. She nodded, in response to the President's question.  
  
"You decided, without any kind of instruction, to begin the extraction process on one Iori Hida," he continued. His eyes were darkly disapproving. "You believed that you understood my plans to the point where you could advance them without my instruction, or you've decided to create and further your own agenda."  
  
Again, she nodded once.  
  
The President looked down at his desk, gathering himself, then looked up again. "Were you not as successful as you were, by sheer chance, I'd have already consigned you to the bottom of the corporation. That does not mean that you will go unpunished." Her face, which had been slowly becoming smug, suddenly snapped into surprised. "You will not have any contact with the prisoners. You will, in fact, be escorting Kido Jyou once he leaves on his vacation, you will observe him carefully, and you will remain in contact with me at all times. You must remain undetected by Kido. Eventually I will give you additional instructions which you will act upon immediately. Do not fail me in this, Assistant. You are useful but not essential, and you know far too much to be allowed to roam freely across the world."  
  
"But, sir," she responded desperately, "didn't I do what you were looking for?"  
  
"The extraction process that I've developed is not something to be implemented by somebody who is ignorant of the process!" he thundered. "You don't know what the process is designed to do; how can you possibly assist it other than blind luck? The process is much more than simply making the person feel bad about themselves, Assistant!"  
  
She remained mute. After a moment, the President said, "Take your hat and get on your assignment."  
  
She departed quietly, neither storming nor cursing; she simply turned, took her hat down, and got into the elevator shaft. A moment after she left Gatomon jumped up from her resting place, beneath the President's chair, and landed easily on the President's desk. "That went well."  
  
"I wish I could reward her," the President said quietly. "She did excellently at the task she set for herself. But her success was due to blind luck in her assumptions. That's too dangerous to use on the last one." He glanced at his clasped hands, then turned his gaze over to the waiting Gatomon. "I suspect that this won't do much for your character, but I do not have the time to work on Hikari. I need you to prepare her, and quickly."  
  
Gatomon's ears perked up. "Really?"  
  
The President's gaze turned piercing. "Try not to enjoy it too much, Gatomon. And don't bother with anything subtle. We don't have much time and out of all of the children Hikari has the most resistance to this sort of thing; a sort of psychic stamina, if you will. Use a sledgehammer's worth of her greatest fear and smash her resistance aside."  
  
"Why do we have to hurry?" Gatomon said darkly.  
  
"We have to hurry," the President explained as if to a child, "because I am convinced that the Emperor will come here after he is finished recovering and that he'll have a lot of his friends from back home with him. Humanity hasn't designed the defenses that can hold to an assault led by a vanguard of Perfect-level digimon. Four renegade Chosen will be of no use against them, either, which leaves us myself and you three Assistants. Those are not good odds."  
  
Gatomon nodded. "We didn't get him at the stadium?"  
  
The President shook his head. "It would seem that the Emperor was prepared. He opened a Gate and left about three minutes from when the draining hit."  
  
"Alright, then," she responded, grinning ferally. "I'll take good care of her."  
  
****  
  
Miyako sat in the same chair she'd been in for the last fifteen minutes, head in hands, nursing one mighty headache. After what Vademon had done it was all she could do to just sit there and rock slightly. She could still conjure up the disorienting feeling of a foreign mind going through her memories, quickly and efficiently sorting them into coherent categories for his own study. According to Vademon he'd been quick. According to Miyako he'd spent the better part of the day in her head. He'd taken off a few minutes ago, newly gained information stored in a little disk in his hand, and had promised to send for somebody to take care of the headache.  
  
A few moments earlier, Aquilamon had entered the room; he'd downsized to Hawkmon for his partner's sake and was currently doing his best to soothe her by holding her hands in his wings, relating a story of his career to Miyako. "So I happened across this gigantic Saberdramon, don't you know, and he's just in an awful state of affairs - his wings weren't working properly, from his fall. It's all I can do to lug the lug off to the nearest medical station. The frontier's not quite settled yet, and there's plenty of open space left out there - "  
  
Miyako muttered something incoherent into the table. Hawkmon immediately broke off his monologue. "Miyako, are you quite all right?"  
  
"No," she managed. "Do you know how scratchy your voice is? It's making my head hurt even worse!"  
  
"It's the best I can do, my dear - my voicebox was injured during one of the larger battles we've had here for the land."  
  
"You've fought a lot, then?" Miyako asked. Hawkmon glanced off to the side of the room, away from Miyako's eyes, but it seemed that for a brief second he was much older. Then he turned back to her, youth in his eyes again.  
  
"We've had to on occasion, you know," he said. "Can't help it. For some time now, however, the Northlands where the Virus-types tend to gather have been carefully managed by Piedmon."  
  
Miyako didn't take her eyes off of the table, but her voice softened. "Poor little thing. Fighting's not in you." She missed the flicker in Hawkmon's eyes. "Who's this Piedmon?"  
  
"He's a Mega-level Virus type that the Regent stumbled across, trapped within a Gate of Destiny - a storage place for people, you might say. He broke the lock on it and allowed Piedmon outside. Piedmon then immediately took over the Northlands, fashioning for himself a tall tower to rule the place from. However, he kept in mind the fact that the Regent helped him out, and has been working with us for - well, it must be five years now."  
  
Miyako finally pulled her head off of her hands. "I thought Virus- types were bad."  
  
"They're just different, it turns out. More aggressive and less sensitive, but they're all digimon underneath. Why, the Regent's partner himself, Stingmon, is a Virus-type, and look how he is; he'd spoil the Regent if he was still a child."  
  
"Is this Stingmon big, green, and look kinda like a wasp with two legs?" Miyako asked, suddenly slightly tense. Her eyes were not on Hawkmon but focused behind him.  
  
"He does indeed, Miyako. That's quite the observation; how did you manage to guess that?"  
  
"He's right there."  
  
Hawkmon spun around, quick to his feet despite himself, and found himself staring at an obviously relaxed Stingmon. Even in his relaxed state he still appeared ready to kill; his armored torso upright, his arms always held carefully away from his body. Hawkmon knew that it was unlikely that Stingmon ever really lowered his guard when he wasn't near the Regent or anyone else he really trusted. Still, a relaxed Stingmon is a happy Stingmon, Hawkmon reminded himself, and a happy Stingmon is probably a happy Hawkmon. "Hello there, Stingmon. What would you like?"  
  
Miyako sighed a bit and let her head drop back down. Of course they'd know each other; Hawkmon knew the entire world, as far as she could tell.  
  
"Oh, just to drop by. How's she doing?"  
  
"You never just drop by," Hawkmon retorted. "She's not doing well, incidently. Vademon sorted out her memories a half-hour ago, remember?"  
  
"Yes, I do." Stingmon didn't sound too worried.  
  
"What do you really want, Sting?"  
  
"It's not what I want, Hawkmon. The Regent has requested to see our guest," Stingmon said, and he waved in Miyako's general direction.  
  
Miyako had only been half-listening to the conversation when that little nugget of information came up, still stewing on Hawkmon. She perked up a bit, suddenly feeling both very nervous and just a tad bit excited. The Regent himself was very, very good looking, and he was obviously intelligent. In her mind things were beginning to look up, just a bit. Her friends might still be captured back on Earth, and she might be almost all alone in this place, but if the world's current ruler was both interesting and interested. hey, a girl could dream, couldn't she? Even if there was something vaguely wrong about him. She started paying quite a bit of attention.  
  
"Why's that?" Hawkmon said.  
  
"Vademon's scan, along with what Datamon was able to gather, has shown that something's seriously wrong in the other world. She's from the the other world and might be able to give a better perspective to the whole thing."  
  
"Did the Regent actually agree to let a human get scanned by Vademon?" Hawkmon asked. Miyako's shoulders pulled towards each other, ever so slightly.  
  
"Well... no. I did that. I thought it would be for the best!" Miyako's shoulders relaxed, but when she saw the perturbed look on Hawkmon's face -  
  
"Hey, who exactly is the Regent, anyway?" Both of them stopped their glaring contest and turned their gazes on the suddenly attentive and straightened Miyako.  
  
"You mean to tell me that you don't know who he is?" Stingmon replied, incredulous.  
  
"I know the general stuff, like that he's in charge and running the digital world, but I don't really know anything about him," Miyako explained plaintively. Stingmon glanced over at Hawkmon, who shook his head slightly in response, then turned back to her.  
  
"I'll agree to give you some history," the insect said, and sat down in a chair across from Miyako. "The Regent's real name is his to give out, but he's also a human. He came here six years ago, after you and your other Chosen were driven out. The Regent defeated both the Emperor and Milleniumon, and has been in charge since then. I happen to be his partner digimon." Miyako's left eye twitched and she suddenly slumped over, hard, her hands trembling despite themselves.  
  
"Sure," she said mechanically, "I could see that the Emperor was gone, but... his monster too? That's crazy. Nothing could beat that thing when it was still Kimeramon!"  
  
"He's gone," Hawkmon said, sighing a bit. "He's been gone for six years." Miyako shook her head slightly. She then sighed a bit.  
  
"There's more," Stingmon said. "He's not just ruling because he feels like it. He's been ordained by the Four Gods of the digital world to watch over the land until the time comes. Then he'll step down from being the Regent, and he'll be able to be himself again." Hawkmon nodded his assent.  
  
After a moment Miyako gathered herself, and stood up woozily. "I think I'll be all right. Which way do I go?"  
  
Stingmon pointed down the hall. "Take the first staircase you see all the way up to the top, and his room's on the left-hand side. He'll probably meet you halfway, though."  
  
"Let's go, Hawkmon," she said, extending an arm for him to hop on. He waved her off with one wing.  
  
"I have a few issues with Stingmon here that need to be attended to, Miyako," he said. She nodded once, lips pursed, and walked off.  
  
Stingmon glanced over at Hawkmon. "So, how long will you be able to keep this up?"  
  
Hawkmon shook his head. "I thought that it'd be easier than this." Having said that, he was engulfed in a glow and digevolved to Aquilamon, tossing his wings out to the side. "I like my body and I like my job. I don't know how much longer I'll have to stay in my Hawkmon form before she's comfortable with me, and I tell you I don't like it at all."  
  
"She's already seeing through part of it," Stingmon warned. "You'll have to tell her sooner rather than later."  
  
Aquilamon sighed. "I know. I just wish she'd accept me as Aquilamon rather than her long-lost partner Hawkmon, but that's not going to happen, is it?"  
  
****  
  
Ken was out of his room, pondering life whilst looking over the capital, when she came up the stairs.  
  
He was completely unprepared. It had been a long, long time since he'd had to talk to human girls, and he'd been contemplating just what he wanted to say, but this one just took his breath away, in a way that he had no idea she was capable of until she wandered up. Ken's self-discipline was second to none in the entire digital world, but even he was having problems looking away from her face, or her lavender hair, or how the glasses she wore caught the light and sent it right into her uncertain honey-colored eyes, or the rest of her. The way her outfit showed her figure, or the subtle sway in her stride; he wasn't prepared for any of this, not at all, and it took him a moment to rally.  
  
"Hi," he said, extending a hand. "I'm the Regent, and I run this world." She took it slowly, lightly, and the contact between them seemed to send a spark up Ken's arm. What's wrong with me? he asked himself.  
  
Releasing his hand, she glanced down and managed, "H-hi. I'm Miyako Inoue."  
  
"So," he said, "you're from the real world. Well, if nobody else has said it, welcome to the digital world."  
  
She conjured up a quick, nervous grin at that. "Glad to be here."  
  
"I understand that I owe you quite a bit," he continued. "People tell me that you and a bit of medicine kept me from dying."  
  
"Don't worry about it," she said, waving him off slightly. "Anybody would have done it."  
  
"That doesn't change the fact that you did it. I owe you one, Miyako." And he grinned at her. It wasn't a planned grin; in fact, he'd been intent on staying serious and focused the whole time. But... it just sort of happened. Ken thought, I'm not losing it like this. No way.  
  
The grin did seem to calm her down a bit, though. "No problem," she said, and smiled back. For a brief second, there didn't seem to be anything beyond her face, and he was - mesmerized? That was the word, yes. Mesmerized. But reality, and his earned discipline, quickly reasserted themselves.  
  
"I'm curious," he said. "Chardsy's been up here earlier, and he was in quite the trance, but you don't seem affected by this world at all. Have you been here before?"  
  
She nodded. "Yeah. I was here a long time ago, back when the Emperor was still around." Ken winced slightly, nicked despite himself by the reminder.  
  
"So you're a Chosen?" She nodded slightly. "That explains how you got here in the first place. It's not just anybody who can get through my Seals, you know."  
  
"You built the Seals?" Miyako said, standing up straighter. Ken found himself feeling just a touch nervous.  
  
"Yeah, I did. They've -"  
  
She cut him off. "Do you know how long I tried to get past those things to get back in?" She unconsciously clenched a fist behind her back. "Weeks, that's how long! I spent weeks in front of a computer screen, trying my luck against your stupid Seals, so that I could come through and find out what happened!"  
  
"I had to keep Milleniumon in the digital world!" he shot back, holding up two hands. "I didn't have any choice - he would have gotten out otherwise!"  
  
Miyako opened her mouth to shoot something back but much to Ken's relief she realized that he was right and managed to calm down somewhat. At least, her eyes lost the hard edge to them. "You could have at least sent Daisuke through to us," she said.  
  
Ken looked off to the left, avoiding her gaze. "I couldn't do that." He watched as Miyako absorbed that statement, eyes turning briefly downcast before sharpening up again, hands unclenching. When her eyes turned down Ken suddenly felt a bit bad himself. Almost as a reflex he glanced up saying, "He... wouldn't have wanted his friends to find out what had happened."  
  
"You act like you know him," she observed.  
  
"We fought together, against Milleniumon." Ken turned his gaze back on her; he saw nothing but curiousity and a touch of concern in those honey- brown eyes. "That was a bad time for me. He helped me through some personal problems. However, that's neither here nor now. What's been going on in that world of yours?"  
  
Miyako seemed to suddenly focus, leaning forward just a bit, becoming slightly more animated. "What do you know about the Odaiba Group?"  
  
"Quite a bit," Ken replied dryly. Dimly, he realized that it was getting easier to talk to this Miyako girl. "I know that they've constructed and distributed popular energy reactors that draw their power from the humans around them; I know that they've developed a network-based dark energy distribution method using a device called the VandeNet; I also know that their President is hunting Chosen, presumably for their respective Sigils. I'd have to -"  
  
She cut him off again. "Hunting Chosen?" Her eyes had gone from focused and thin to large and frightened; her hands were suddenly clasped together in front of her. "Is that why you've brought Mimi here?"  
  
"You mean the Sincerity chosen?" She nodded slowly. "Yes, she'd had her Sigil stolen from her by the President. I have to assume that he's captured other Chosen. He's probably taken out their Sigils, too." Miyako's eyes, which had been open and horrified, clouded over again. Ken felt the same heart-pang as the last time they'd done that. She clasped her upper arms, shivering slightly. "What's wrong?" Ken heard himself asking.  
  
"He does have other Chosen," she said softly. "I thought they'd be all right for a while, but I played right into his hands..." Ken could only stand there, uncertain of what to do and how to do it; Miyako didn't give him any time to react. Before he could twitch she'd unwrapped her arms and grabbed his upper arms, whole body shaking, desperate. "Mr. Regent, you've got to help me! I did exactly what he wanted, I managed to give most of the team to him! You've got to help me get them all back!"  
  
Ken felt his own arms go up and gently break the hold she had on him, keeping her hands in his. He said, "I'll find a way, Miyako. Not only are they your friends, they're also the champions of the digital world, and we back up our champions. But first -" She cut him off again, this time to pull him close to her, hugging him with all her considerable strength. For a long moment, Ken couldn't think, couldn't breathe, couldn't move past her there, right next to him...  
  
"Thank you, Mr. Regent," she said softly, and broke it off, turning around, suddenly scarlet. Ken took the moment to catch his breath and gather the tattered scraps of his dignity. Shaken, he asked himself, What just happened here?  
  
****  
  
He had been planning to make a quick stopover, just long enough to drop off his cargo of rare Tanna fruit and spend some of his newly acquired Digidollars in a local bar he was familiar with, when he happened across a few rumors. A few of the virus-types that he knew were talking about Capital gossip, and he did his best to keep up with the Capital news. He spent a few minutes listening in on their conversation, growing more and more disturbed with each new scrap of information, and after the last one - a vague story that the famous Regent had been wounded - he decided that Tanna fruit picking could wait until he had checked up on this, and took to the sky.  
  
The countryside was familiar to him, a seven-foot length of flesh and steel, with the head of a Kuwagamon, the torso of a Leomon, the wings of a Kabuterimon, and the lower body of a Centarumon, one that was spliced with fragments of steel. His tail, that of a Scorpiomon, lashed behind him as he glided on the strong southerly currents towards the far distant Capital. His father, wounded in a conflict - he wouldn't stand for it! Stingmon would just have to swallow his pride, because nothing was keeping him from helping his great father and perhaps finally being recognised as more than just a prodigal son. Then all would be well again, just like it was when he was still Goburimon and even Stingmon liked him.  
  
Grinning his excitement to the heavens, DemiKimeramon flew in to his destiny.  
  
END CONTACT 


	11. Opposites

PAUSE FOR BOURGEOIS LEGALITIES "Digimon" and all characters and situations contained within are copyrighted trademarks of Bandai, Saban Entertainment and Upper Deck. Permission is hereby granted by the author to reproduce this document unless you try to make money off of it; if so, please contact me first at Calcite_McWhalen@hotmail.com. I may be a grown-up cartoon fan but I do know my way around Title 17.  
  
****  
  
Opposites  
  
****  
  
"Alright, people, let's begin," Ken said, and sat down at the table. The meeting room that he and the others were using wasn't anything special as far as meeting rooms went, just a table, a wall-mounted whiteboard, and a large collection of chairs. A pot of coffee was quietly percolating over in the corner. Miyako reflected that coffee was a very good thing as she sat over a steaming cup, nursing it relaxedly.  
  
"This is probably redundant," Ken admitted as he glanced around the room, "but we're all here, right?" Miyako was the first to respond, nodding slowly. After her conversation with Ken had been over yesterday she had somehow managed to be led back to her room before she had let the euphoria go to her head. She'd done it, she realized afterwards; not only had she withstood his sheer charm at close range, she'd also found a way to help out her friends too! She had a mixed victory, though. Thinking about it afterwards had mortified Miyako; she had acted without thinking, running on her emotions, and while they'd helped out her friends back home they'd also driven him away. She'd seen how red he had turned after she'd let go of him and knew what that meant - she'd embarrassed him, and badly. Even now, he was avoiding looking at her even while she snuck looks at him. She probably didn't have much of a chance with him now and that realization had slumped her shoulders slightly.  
  
At the same time, however, she was slightly relieved that she didn't have the opportunity to travel down that path. There was something dark about Ken, something that was lurking back in the crevices of her mind. His voice, his face, the way he walked and talked; they all reached into the dense mists that surrounded her memories of when she was a Chosen, fighting the good fight, and unlocked something. She wasn't sure how, not yet, but Ken was definitely giving her a foreboding feeling, however small. A wasted night's worth of trying to recall what significance Ken wasn't helping much, either. She almost felt better about him when she thought that way. Almost.  
  
"I'm ready," Angemon said. His wings were down, his helmet off, exposing the sternly masculine face and long blonde hair underneath. His dark blue eyes never left Ken as he nodded once, rod clutched in his left hand. To his left, Leomon nodded his assent, growling as he did so. Like Miyako, he also had a mug of coffee; unlike her he kept knocking the whole thing back in a single shot and would pour more from the pot. It seemed to have as much effect as water on him, Miyako marveled, but he did happen to be almost six hundred pounds of muscle and fur.  
  
On the other side of the table, facing the two of them, sat the smooth, fiendishly seductive form of LadyDevimon, wings curled tightly against her back. "Piedmon sent me as his representative," she said, her voice husky and sensuous. "He has to oversee the most harsh realm in the digital world, remember." Her very presence set Miyako's teeth on edge. LadyDevimon wasn't wearing much and what she did wear was extremely flattering. Miyako was still dressed in the modest outfit given to her by the Keeper, her hair pulled back into a simple bun. More than once Miyako caught LadyDevimon giving her a contemptuous glare, one that Miyako returned every time.  
  
If Ken was ignoring their byplay, however, Datamon was completely oblivious to it. He was poring over the reports that Vademon and Ken had given him and barely managed a brief glance up at Ken's request. Sitting at his left elbow was the Keeper, still clad in the thick robe he always wore, his hood up over his head. He waved slightly at Ken and said, "Girls, girls, let's keep things calm, okay?" Miyako and LadyDevimon broke off their latest staring contest and stared aside. For his part Ken still didn't comment on the ill will between the two women.  
  
ShogunGeckomon decided to defuse the situation the only way he knew how; by distraction. He eased himself out of his vastly oversized chair, nodded once politely, and crashed back down onto the chair, throwing a tremor throughout the room. He barely fit into the room even after using his natural sizing powers to shrink himself down to almost human-size. The poor chair didn't have a chance against the giant Shogun and immediately crunched into pieces. ShogunGeckomon remained on the ground, his girth more than enough to allow him to remain at eye level with the other Administrators, who didn't give him much more than a passing glance.  
  
Next to him, Chardsy couldn't help but stare. He was still wearing his street clothes, but they'd been cleaned while he was sleeping by a team of Penmon. They'd had a blast and managed to get things done right at the same time. Miyako had to hold back a quiet chortle as he caught the receiving end of ShogunGeckomon's dark glare and glanced away hurriedly. Chardsy still had quite a bit of catching up and fitting in before he'd really be used to the digital world. His gaze ended up on Elecmon, who had traveled with Angemon all the way from far-off File Island and the Primary Village that he ran to attend the meeting. Elecmon gave Chardsy a tolerant smile.  
  
Stingmon sat on the other side of the table from Miyako. He had taken off his spiked shoulder guards for the meeting and a pleased Biyomon was perched on his left shoulder. Miyako had decided that the two made for fun watching; one would lean over and whisper something to the other, and they'd giggle to each other. It was fun watching a seven-foot insect giggle like a schoolkid and she shook her head slightly at their antics; there was obviously something between them. Ken seemed to agree. "Should we wait for the two of you to finish, Sting, or can we keep going here?" Despite his words he had an amused lilt to his voice, one that made something in Miyako resonate. She promptly put that in its place.  
  
For his part, Stingmon jumped slightly when Ken called out to him, ruffling a startled Biyomon into sudden flight. "Oh, Regent! Yes, we're both ready to begin." Biyomon nodded her head even as she settled back down onto his shoulder.  
  
Across the table, Palmon called out, "Are you two sure about that?" Biyomon nodded her head, suddenly looking a bit more red than pink. Stingmon controlled himself better, merely jerking his head stiffly up and down, looking something like a large mannequin. Miyako had to restrain the urge to yell out just how cute they looked together.  
  
Ken nodded. "Alright then."  
  
ShogunGeckomon levered himself up a bit. "What's all this about, anyway? I don't know about you others, but all I got was a quick e-mail saying, Come quick! Do you feel like telling me why?"  
  
"It's about the old Chosen," Ken started. "They're in a world of trouble in the real world, and we're going to pull them out."  
  
LadyDevimon leaned out across the table. "Why?" Miyako shot her a look that could fuse sand into glass. She wasn't alone in her ire; several others, including Leomon, Angemon, and ShogunGeckomon also replied in kind.  
  
Miyako responded first, of course. "We've saved your world more times than I can count on one hand, that's why!"  
  
"The Chosen have done amazing things when they were walking in our world," Leomon rumbled. His voice commanded attention, and the others were soon hanging onto his words. "When I was a mere kitten they had taken on major evil powers in our world, challenging the altered digimon of Apocalamon and his ilk time and again. They awoke the greatest powers in this world and in theirs. I say that we of the digital world owe them too much to merely abandon them to the powers of darkness; we must respond!" Miyako smiled gratefully at the lion, who nodded back.  
  
Datamon glanced up from his paperwork. "I agree with the lion." There was a murmer of agreement from all of the other parties and somewhat louder ones from Biyomon and Palmon. LadyDevimon shook her head, frustrated.  
  
"Fine, fine," she grated out. Miyako grinned cheerfully at her and received a spiteful look in return.  
  
The Keeper decided to keep things moving. "What do we know about the situation?"  
  
"The Chosen's home world has been more or less conquered by a corporation by the name of the Odaiba Group," Datamon explained. "This corporation has distributed energy-draining mechanisms disguised as the next major power source for the humans. They have also activated a new person-to-person interface called the VandeNet, a device that also streams out dark energy, which the energy-starved humans absorb like water. What goal the corporation has for turning humans evil is still unknown, but the fact of the matter is that they're doing it."  
  
"What is this corporation doing to the Chosen themselves?" Palmon asked. There was an unsteady note to her voice.  
  
"They're withdrawing the Sigils from them," Ken replied.  
  
"The President's sucking out their power!" Miyako said, at the same time. The rest of the attendees exchanged confused looks between the two of them.  
  
"Can you make that clearer?" a baffled Elecmon asked. "What, exactly, is a Sigil?"  
  
It fell to the Keeper to answer that question, and he strode around the room as he lectured. "A Sigil is a physical representation of the personal trait that it represents. As far as I've been able to tell, only humans can get Sigils. Sigils look like tiny crystals, ones that glow faintly in a color that matches the trait that it represents, right? It's the Sigils, working with the Crests, that let a partner digimon Digevolve to the Perfect level."  
  
Miyako's right eye was twitching by the end of the recital, and her hands were gripping the coffee cup far more tightly than was necessary. "Are you saying that I've always had this Sigil thing in me?"  
  
The Keeper shook his head. "No. When you first arrived in the digital world, you started to grow one. As your Crest characteristics improved, so did your Sigil." He favored her with an upraised hand. "All Chosen are chosen, however, because of how well they react to the presence of a Sigil within themselves."  
  
"I have it from a reliable source that the President has all of the Chosen at his base in the real world," Ken added once the Keeper had sat down. "He's going to extract the Sigils from them."  
  
"He hasn't gotten around to it yet, has he?" Angemon asked, and the entire table both held its breath and turned towards the the Keeper. The Keeper shook his head, allowing the table's collection of stiff necks and taut fingertips to relax.  
  
"What do you mean by 'extract'?" LadyDevimon asked, leaning forward again.  
  
"Take 'em out," Chardsy answered, shivering slightly. "He's got some kinda crazy magic beam thingie that pulled it right the fuck outta Tachikawa." Miyako had been watching Ken out of the corner out of her eye - she hadn't gotten around to catching herself - and she saw him sneak a quick glance of his own at Palmon. Abruptly the mists in her mind parted for the briefest of moments, and she remembered: Palmon was Mimi's partner, and they had been exceptionally close even compared to the other Chosen. Miyako found herself both cursing Chardsy for his ignorance and sneaking her own looks at Palmon, who apparently hadn't picked up the connection.  
  
"There's more to it than that," the Keeper interjected. "The Sigils won't just come out, and there's no magic spell that'll yank them out. The Chosen has to consciously reject the particular quality that the Sigil represents, and then it'll literally just spit itself out."  
  
"They would never do such a thing!" Leomon growled out defensively. "All of the Chosen are strong of will and have a core of goodness. They would never be foolish!"  
  
"You ain't payin' no attention, are ya?" Chardsy shot back. "I watched it happen right in front of me!" This time, both Palmon and Biyomon reacted. Angemon didn't look too good himself.  
  
Palmon beat Biyomon to the punch. "Who?"  
  
Chardsy was quick, but not quick enough; Ken cut him off before he could answer the question. "We'll talk about that later. Right now, we need to stay focused." Chardsy shot Ken a dark look but subsided. The three digimon at the end of the table got themselves back under control, but all three looked a bit pale; Angemon in particular stood out.  
  
LadyDevimon decided to keep the conversation moving. "What can these Sigils do by themselves?"  
  
"They emit the power contained within to whoever might have possession of them," Datamon responded. "Most theories involving them place them as a very advanced form of the Digimentals, in terms of what they can do by themselves. As such, they can do all of the things that the Digimentals can do, but with more raw power behind them."  
  
"When I tangled with the President," Ken said, "he proved that he could heal himself with the Sigil he'd just acquired. Seeing as the Sincerity Digimental could do that, we can assume that the identical Sigil." Miyako snuck another look over at Palmon and this time she saw the inevitable shock, fear, and surprise on Palmon's face: she'd figured it out.  
  
Palmon stood, face contorted. "Regent," she managed to say, "I'm sorry, but... where?"  
  
"Medical wing, room 231, you've got permission," Ken responded quietly. "She shouldn't be conscious yet." Palmon turned and tore out the door, leaving a stunned group behind her. After a moment Chardsy got up, face confused and tired but determined despite that.  
  
"Listen, guys," he explained, and the others looked at him. "I don't know jack about all this digital world crap, but I can deal with people easy. Tachikawa ain't gonna have a clue what to do or think when she wakes up, and havin' some nuts plant cryin' on her ain't gonna help things much. I'm goin' to the hospital." With that, he turned and jogged after the receding figure of Palmon. The others continued watching him go, Ken clicking on a little device that looked suspiciously like a cell phone and whispering into it for a moment.  
  
"He could have been a Chosen, if he'd been in Japan," Leomon rumbled out softly. "That's enough on the need for action. When do we make our move?"  
  
"Not yet."  
  
The lion digimon snorted. "Regent. This is about as cut-and-dry a situation as we can get. We need to go in there."  
  
Ken lifted a hand. "Where, then, are the Sigils? Does the President keep them on him, or are they on a shelf or in a safe? What safeguards does the President have to take care of his new prize? We don't know any of these things, and we can't ever know them all, but I do think that some planning is called for first."  
  
Miyako was taken aback, pulling away from her coffee mug. Planning was all well and good, but this Regent guy, this Ken, he didn't sound very reassuring at all. In fact, he sounded very much like he didn't want to help at all! Miyako leaned over her coffee cup, trying to understand. Was he helping or not? "They'd probably be at his base in the real world," she murmured quietly.  
  
"That wouldn't make any sense, my dear," LadyDevimon responded. "You know that the President has your friends; he knows that you know. He'd move them, probably to somewhere you couldn't get to at all." Datamon glanced up from his printouts, ready to interject something, but he was cut off by -  
  
Stingmon leaned out towards the middle of the table, bringing Biyomon with him. "I agree. We don't have much of an idea of what we're up against - and remember, in the real world, dead is dead is dead. Nobody comes back when you die out there. We need to be really careful if we do this." Miyako happened to be pulling up from over the cup, and was facing both Ken and the Keeper. Therefore, she saw the dark look that Ken shot the Keeper. For his part, the Keeper didn't seem to notice.  
  
"Wait a minute," LadyDevimon interjected. "This might not be that hard. If the Sigils are that powerful, shouldn't we be able to just find them with a detecting device?"  
  
"Don't know," Datamon replied, shuffling his papers off to the side. "We weren't ever able to track down the Digimentals that way."  
  
"They do," Biyomon pronounced, and all the others in the room turned to her. "When you partner's in line with his or her Sigil, you can pick up on where they are, and how they're feeling. It's more than just a vague sensation; it's more like you're part of them, and they are part of you, and both of you can feel each other."  
  
"Fat lot of good that'll do us," ShogunGeckomon muttered, "with the Sigils outside of the Chosen."  
  
"Maybe we can come up with a way to track down the Sigils using the Digimentals," the Keeper suggested. "They're pretty much the same thing, right?"  
  
Ken glanced over at the hooded Keeper, and even Datamon had to pick up on the edge of resentment behind his tone of voice. "That won't work - if it did, the Chosen could have tracked down the Digimentals much more easily when they first arrived in the digital world, rather than having to wander around for so long." And that was that; Miyako's left eye started twitching again. Miyako had tried. She really had tried to be patient with this discussion, to let it play out, but she just couldn't take it any more. This Regent guy, he sounded like he was more worried about a bunch of stupid crystals rather than her friends! Not only that, but he thought he could comment on how well they'd done when they first got into the digital world? Granted, they had had to wander around for a while, but -  
  
Her temper snapped.  
  
Standing up suddenly, she shrieked, "I'm sick of this! You guys are talking about Sigils and Digi-thingies and whether or not we're worthy of your help, and you've completely forgotton about my friends! What's more important to you?!"  
  
Ken was the poor fool who stuck his neck out. "Miyako, we're trying to figure out the best way of extracting your friends -"  
  
She cut him off. "Extracting?" she bellowed at the suddenly shocked Ken. "What the hell do you mean by that?! Are they some resource that you'd have to 'extract' to be of any use?! Oh, wait, I remember now; they're just crystals that you want; the people who happen to have them don't matter at all to you!" She stormed out, hands clenched into tight fists, head down, hair streaming behind her as she ran.  
  
For a long moment, they all just sat there: Ken looked to Stingmon, who glanced up at Biyomon, who was glaring at LadyDevimon, who was studiously examining her nails. After a moment Ken stood up, face cold. "I need a few moments. Stingmon, you're in charge." He turned and walked out the same way she'd left: hands clenched into fists.  
  
****  
  
Consuming.  
  
Devouring.  
  
EVERYWHERE!  
  
She looked to the left but saw only the white, white to the right, white above and below. She'd seen this happen several times now - who could say just how many times? It felt like she'd been in here for a day and in for a year. How many times had this happened? Hikari had long since lost the mental abilities required to count. She had to focus on getting through this. Although she knew the truth; eventually, she'd lose the fight again. She always did in the end.  
  
She was lying against a sturdy, smooth tree in a small, gladed part of the park near her apartment complex home; at least, what had been the park before the Odaiba Group had bought the place off the city and built their tower there. A few birds flickered here and there, and a butterfly pair was busily engaging itself in a game of tag, six inches from her nose. She could see a few yards in all directions before the pleasant scene gave way to a kind of blurry whiteness, like a fog of some sort, but it was far too bright for that.  
  
Here it came.  
  
It started much like it had always started. The butterflies decided that a few feet off to the right was a more appropriate spot and flew over there, their iridescent wings glittering in the early morning sun. Ahead of her, she could see emerging from the white a green-clad sandy-haired friend of hers, walking over with a large basket under one arm: Takeru. Of course, he also was holding a modest flower bouquet, but that was to be expected, right?  
  
As he walked towards her he happened to stumble across an outstretched root, sending him and his carefully packed cargo sprawling out on the ground in front of her. She could feel her hand reach up and cover her giggling and Takeru shot her a cross look as gathered himself from his abrupt fall. His hand reached out, grasping for the flowers, and it was in that moment that the white advanced. Flowing like fog and now shining bright as a reflection of the sun on the water it charged across the expanse between itself and the hapless Takeru. It swept across his lower legs first, and the white stripped them of flesh in seconds, exposing pulsing blood vessels and rippling muscle before eating that, too, consuming it down to the bone. It wasn't until the white finally reached the whitened bones that Takeru finally began to scream.  
  
The first time, it had caught her brutally by surprise. The next time, she'd screamed herself raw trying to get him to react, or turn around, or to get away from the white somehow. The sixth time she'd stopped trying, and she couldn't remember how long ago that had been.  
  
The white continued up, devouring wholesale now, eating his thighs, arms, pelvis, and chest in a scant few seconds. Involuntarily Hikari screamed again, the horror just as sharp now as it had ever been before. Takeru didn't have time to draw a second breath before the white jumped up his chest, evaporating the rest of him almost instantly. But it wasn't sated there; it kept coming, eating the ground, the basket, even the flowers. The poor butterflies didn't even know it was coming until they too dissolved under the blistering white, transforming to dust before her blinded eyes. She couldn't even see, now, the light was far too much, and -  
  
Her legs suddenly caught fire, the blinding white burning through and through with a punishing, searing flare. It seemed to take a long time before the pain spread upwards, and even though Hikari knew that her legs were long since gone they still sent their wail of pain up to her brain. It kept coming, cutting though her lower torso, moving upwards towards the rest of her, almost in passing setting her arms ablaze with searing pain. It reached her chest -  
  
And stopped dead. Something was holding it back, something inside her. A kind of brooding darkness was emanating from the center of her being, and it held the white back. Something about it beckoned to her, calling her to sieze it and somehow make everything better again. The first time, she'd shied away from anything that felt like darkness, and had suffered through the rest of it, feeling herself come apart at the seams before the pain was everywhere and she had simply passed out. The second time, she'd used it for a brief moment for respite before letting it go, shocked at herself, only to feel the white come on strong again and char her again. The third time, she'd grasped it and driven the white back and hated herself for it.  
  
This time, she didn't even feel a morsel of regret. She simply embraced the darkness and shoved the light aside, restoring everything instantly, replacing the butterflies and the birds and even silly Takeru and his flowers. And it was all right again... except that the white didn't go anywhere but back to where it had been, and then it advanced again...  
  
****  
  
On the top floor of the Odaiba Group building, the President steepled his fingers, watching the various monitors scattered around him with an intensity that surprised the standing Assistant, his face painted with a darkly satisfied smirk on his face. The monitors showed various pictures: one showed the body of Hikari Yagami floating inside a tube, a breathing mask on her face; another showed Gatomon working a console near her; and a third was an EKG readout on the floating girl. His Assistant, who had long since been disgusted with what was on the screen, turned his head aside again. He had clasped his hands behind his back for some time now. "Sir... is this necessary?"  
  
The President looked up at his Assistant. "Of course it is. In order to obtain the Sigil we have to convince Hikari that it is in her best interests to ignore her natural predilections and embrace the darkness as a whole, and reject its opposite."  
  
"How do you know what characteristic will be the Chosen's natural predilection?" the Assistant asked his master.  
  
Distracted by the cameras, he answered, "Oh, I used to know them all well, once upon a time. You might say that we were business rivals - they opposed a real estate deal that I'd been working on at the time."  
  
The Assistant wasn't especially convinced by this explanation but allowed his suspicions to drain away; in the end, he was only an Assistant, and his boss had to know best. If he didn't, he wouldn't be the boss, now would he? For his part, the President had stopped worrying about his Assistant and focused on another camera, one that displayed Gatomon, working the terminal that controlled the chemical flow into the tube that Hikari Yagami was currently occupying. It was impossible to miss both the evil grin on Gatomon's face nor the slowly spreading black spots in her already blotchy fur.  
  
The President's smirk grew larger. There was nothing quite like killing two birds with one stone.  
  
****  
  
Miyako had gotten about halfway across the palace grounds before her anger broke.  
  
The Palace was intended more for usefulness than reflection, but when the Regent had put a very artistically inclined Cherrymon architect in charge of the Palace's design team he was practically asking for something that could do both. The Palace wasn't simply a large building; it was a roughly hexagonal complex, with meandering fields, a dark and fresh forest, and a beautiful lake system set out in the resulting open center. There were the occasional vendor and cleaning stands but it was more or less open and, seeing as the lunch hour hadn't arrived yet, largely unoccupied. It made a great place for meditation and free thinking.  
  
The cheerful forest certainly didn't suit her mood any, but it was just as good a place as any to sit down and feel bad for herself. She'd gone and told him off. Her mind couldn't manage to move past that place in her head. She'd gone and told him off. She knew that she was justified, that he had no right to think of her friends as objects, that he certainly didn't have any right to talk about their old exploits in that manner, but still - she'd gone and told him off. That did it, right there. She didn't have any chance now, no sir, did she? It's alright, though, right? That nameless something that had been bothering her about the high and mighty Ken wouldn't bother her anymore, now. She didn't have to be confused anymore, because she'd gone and told him off.  
  
So why did not being confused make her feel so very awful?  
  
Considering her mood, it wasn't any surprise that she didn't hear the footsteps crunching through the undergrowth until they were almost right on top of her. Glancing up, she half expected to see Ken, coming to toss her out of his world. But no; the Keeper had decided to come over and say hello. His normal hooded robe concealed his face, but his body language made up for it; he sat down carefully, pulling himself into an meditative position, and turned his shadowed head towards Miyako. "So... feel any better for being out here?"  
  
"How'd you find me?" she asked, not glancing up.  
  
"Easily. I can sense where any Chosen is if they're in this world. But you didn't answer my question."  
  
"Not really," she said, looking over at him. She'd let down her hair, and was toying with one particular strand as she responded. "I suppose that he's decided to get rid of me."  
  
"Don't act like that," he replied, an edge of sternness in his voice. "You and I both know that Ken is rational enough to get past one little outburst."  
  
"It wasn't little."  
  
The Keeper chuckled a bit at that. "You don't know what Ken thinks 'little' is, do you?"  
  
"Hey!" she said, jerking her head up, but the Keeper cut off her quick response.  
  
"Here in the digital world 'little' is a bit of shouting and ruffled feelings. 'Big' would be an description of a Deltamon that wanted a village to walk over and wouldn't take no for an answer." The Keeper sat back on his haunches, out of the carefully adopted stance. "You can relax; the others have already moved past it, provided that you don't do it every time you see them."  
  
Miyako flipped the little piece of hair away and started on another one. "Where is he, then?"  
  
"The answer depends on the question underneath it, doesn't it?"  
  
"Don't give me stupid mental games," Miyako snapped. "Either answer the question or don't."  
  
"Fine," the Keeper replied easily. "He's currently trying to psych himself up to come out here."  
  
That particular answer was not one that Miyako was expecting. "Huh?"  
  
"He's trying to convince himself that coming out here would be a good idea, and he's trying to figure out what to say." Miyako looked at the Keeper, still shocked despite herself. Was he confused or just shy? The Keeper, seeing her soul written on her face, decided to answer her unspoken question. "Ken isn't very good at talking to people he's not comfortable with. On one level, he knows that he got caught up in talking about your friends as just the holders of their various Sigils, and not important in and of themselves, and he probably feels awful about it. On the other hand, he's not sure how to say that in a way that you'll listen to, and he's pretty sure that you won't listen regardless. And, of course, he needs you to show him where the other Chosen are - it's a big world, and they weren't kidding in the meeting when they told us that we can't track the Chosen."  
  
"So... he's just confused about what to say?" Miyako said slowly, sorting through what the Keeper had told her.  
  
"That's the whole of it," he responded, and when he did the obvious course of action was laid out in Miyako's mind; she stood up, strong-arming her hair back into a messy bun.  
  
"Two things before you go," she said. The Keeper had been picking himself up off the ground, but he stopped and looked levelly at her, nodding his shrouded head once. "First, how do you know so much about Ken?"  
  
The Keeper sighed, deeply. "I don't want to talk about that right now," he responded heavily. "I knew you'd ask that, and I thought about it, but I don't want to say anything right now."  
  
Miyako pursed her lips. "What's so bad about it that you think I can't know?"  
  
"I can't, Miyako," he responded. "Right now, I can't do that. I'd have to talk to him and get his permission before I could do that."  
  
"Fine. Then at least tell me why I can't see what you look like."  
  
The Keeper chortled a bit. "You really want to know? It's because you'll judge me by what I look like, rather than by who I am."  
  
He said that with such certainty that Miyako had a hard time questioning him, but she was up to the task. She wasn't that... that blind! "Geez! How do you know that?!"  
  
The Keeper gave her a level stare. "Trust me." She didn't have a quick response for the utter conviction in his voice; and when she didn't say anything he got up, dusted down his robes, and walked away. Miyako watched him go, sauntering through the trees, and as such saw when he encountered another person, not far from where she was. The second person gave him a quick glance, then moved by without a word. The Keeper, for his part, kept going, not responding or even looking at the second person, who coalesced into the form of Ken as he entered the better part of Miyako's sight range.  
  
Ken was quite the sight; rather than the usual blue-grey uniform he'd usually worn, he was clad in a loose silken shirt and pants made from some kind of soft material that she'd never seen before. His entire outfit was a navy blue, with white highlights. His hair wasn't tied in a tail anymore either - he had allowed it to hang loosely around his head. His expression was open with just a hint of determination in it. Miyako was blindsided. Fuzzily, she remembered something about him being unsettling, but that was small and seemed very far away. She also remembered that she was supposed to be angry with this person, and that was enough to snap her out of it.  
  
She could tell from his gait that he'd come to seek forgiveness for his transgressions. Well, she wouldn't just let him have it - he'd have to work for it. Her eyes hardened, just slightly, and she made a show of sitting back down. Apparently, from his expression, he realized that he'd have to earn it. "Miyako. Do you mind talking to me?" he asked her quietly.  
  
"What do we have to talk about?" she asked him. He winced slightly, but kept on a brave front and kept going.  
  
"Well, there is the matter of the way we - that is, the administrators and I, were talking about your Chosen friends."  
  
Glancing at him with a hard gaze, her eyes 'accidently' met his for a moment. She was quite proud that she was able to go on without losing her composure after encountering those intensely dark orbs. "How do you think I was going to react?" she asked him, her tone just slightly on this side of harsh. "You were acting like you didn't care about my friends at all. It was just those stupid Sigil things that had you and your little minions interested."  
  
"That's not it at all," he protested quietly. "We care about the Sigils, certainly, but it would make the most sense if the President kept the Chosen near to the Sigils. If we find the Sigils, we can be reasonably certain that we'll find your friends."  
  
"How do you know that?" she demanded.  
  
He shrugged. "The Keeper said so, and he's the Chosen specialist. His reasoning was that the President hasn't been able to extract all of the Sigils yet, and so he'd keep the others around to discourage the ones that are left." Miyako nodded once, then glanced up at him, and decided that he'd earned it for now. She nodded again, but much more slowly this time; an inviting gesture.  
  
She watched him gather up his courage in the form of a slow breath and his neck stiffening. It wasn't much, but she caught it. "But that doesn't excuse forgetting that they're human. Can you forgive me for that, Miyako?"  
  
"Are you sorry?" she shot out, leaning forward, suddenly finding the impulse to grin slightly. Inside, she realized: I was trying not to do that, and it slipped by anyway!  
  
For his part, Ken seemed uncertain by how direct she was being. "Uh... I'm sorry?" he said hesitantly, as if was worried about her response.  
  
He should have been. "Oh, that's all I get?" she asked haughtily. "Be a man and say it like you mean it, or else don't try!" She turned her nose up at him, something that had Ken taken aback, confused for a moment; but abruptly his vision seemed to clear, and his mouth twitched once in a manner that could only be called mischievious. Miyako suddenly had a sinking feeling -  
  
Ken picked her right up off her seat by her arms, setting her down and kneeling in front of her, head bowed over her right hand. "For referring to your dearest friends as inanimate objects, would you accept my humblest apologies, Miyako?" he asked earnestly.  
  
She was totally unprepared for Ken being so direct, and with both her hand and head tingling slightly she could only murmer out a shaken, red-faced, "O-of course." He let her stay like that for a moment, not daring to breathe; then he nodded once, grinned, and stood back up, taking a look at her flustered face. She turned her eyes away, trying not to meet his gaze. "You didn't need to do that," she managed to say.  
  
"You told me to say it like I meant it," he responded smartly, and broke the spell; her blush stayed the same, but one eyebrow snapped down dangerously and started twitching, and her hands curled into fists. All in all, a foolish manuever. "Regent or not, you'll pay for this, Ken!" She jumped to her feet and burst out laughing at the surprise on his face. He was off and running, Miyako close behind, shouting and laughing all the way back to the complex.  
  
****  
  
The medical wing was not a pleasant place, Chardsy reflected, but few of them were; at least this one was much better than the ones back home. White-clad Wizardmon floated around the halls, above the streams of orderlies and the healthier patients. The harsh antiseptic smell that permeated his home hospitals wasn't here; instead, there was a generally clean and outdoorsy smell that came from the Floramon nurses whose job it was to run the place. Still, Chardsy could hear the various unpleasant growls or squeaks of misery or pain, and more than one Wizardmon calling for an instrument from an assistant. At least he didn't have much brainpower to contribute to observing the place. It took most of what he had to keep running after Palmon. For a four-foot plant she could set an amazing pace when she wanted to.  
  
Room 231 was a corner room, positioned to face the waterfront and the docks there. Huge windows filled the room, which were covered with drapes to allow the patient to sleep. Chardsy reached the room just in time to see Palmon put both hand-tendrils to her mouth and gasp softly. He took a quick look at Mimi and saw her like he'd never seen a picture of her; thin and drawn under the fluorescent lights, sunken eyes staring at the ceiling. From how smooth the covers were around her Chardsy guessed that she hadn't moved since she'd gotten there.  
  
Palmon threw herself onto the bed, clambering to look into the face of her old best friend. "Mimi!" she shouted hoarsely. "Mimi, it's me, Palmon!"  
  
Mimi turned a sapped gaze on Palmon, and her eyelids flickered once. "Hi, Palmon," she managed to say quietly.  
  
"Oh, Mimi," Palmon sobbed, and embraced the prone Mimi. "I'm so sorry I couldn't do anything..." Slowly, Mimi put her arms around Palmon. To Chardsy, staring at the scene from the door, the movement from Mimi could be best described as automatic.  
  
"There's nothing you could have done," Mimi said faintly, distantly, and released Palmon. Grief-stricken and now confused, Palmon pulled back.  
  
"Mimi? What's wrong?" she asked tearfully. Mimi could only stare at her hands. "He was right, Palmon. It doesn't mean anything anymore. Nothing does." She spoke in a monotone. She looked back up at the now very worried Palmon. "The President guy proved it. He showed me how I don't care, how I stopped caring a long time ago."  
  
"That's ridiculous," Palmon protested vehemently. "You were the only person who cared so much about everything that you couldn't help but think of everything, all the time! To everyone else you were a bit ditzy, but that was because you did care so much!"  
  
Mimi's voice became a touch more animated, but just a touch. "I was just a ditz. And I didn't care about anything but myself back then." She moved now, to lower her hands back down. Her eyes were empty. "I don't even care about that, now."  
  
Palmon opened her mouth to tell Mimi how wrong she was -  
  
And the room exploded with light, seemingly coming from all directions. It was so bright that Mimi immediately covered her eyes, that Palmon ducked down. After a moment Mimi could look up again and saw that the window curtains had been abruptly pulled back. Standing with his arms crossed, outlined and shadowed by the light, was a very irate Chardsy.  
  
"Tachikawa," he snarled out, "don' be like that! You ain't like that, or you'da never started that crazy Gardening Sincerity band o' yours! You ain't like the resta' us hopeless scrubs - you give a shit about the world!" He pulled out a Walkman and a few CD cases; tossing them on the bed, he continued, "Listen to that crap! You talk about nothin' but what people can do, and what love is, and how it does things to people, and otha' shit that I can't even get!" Palmon looked stricken by Chardsy's tone, but Mimi was listening. Her eyes weren't as dead as when he came in, so he kept bellowing.  
  
"I don' wanna say this, but when I got in here, you scared the hell outta me! You and ya' band may have sold out to Odaiba, but that didn't stop you guys. You kept writing crap that gave people hope and got 'em feeling like there was somethin' to work for again. And now," he picked up his pitch, "I find you - you, who gave millions new hope - I find you moanin' and groanin' cuz big bad Mr. President told you off. Well that's bullshit! You gotta lot more in you than sittin' in a bed bein' down about nothin'!" He shook his head angrily. "Get off your ass, Tachikawa, and get better!" With that, he turned and marched out of the room.  
  
Palmon watched him go, too shocked to do anything else, and Mimi let her gaze slip off of him. She shook her head. "He doesn't understand," Mimi said. "He doesn't get it. I don't care," she said again, but this time with a stubborn lilt to her voice that wasn't there before. The sensitive Palmon picked up on it right away, but rather than press Mimi she just hopped back up and sat next to her on the bed, wrapping her up with her tendrils. After a moment or two Mimi returned it, this time allowing herself to cry, to feel the pain of some terrible loss that she didn't even understand. If there was nothing else that she knew, it was that she could make it through this if Palmon was by her side. After all, a little voice said, she'd dyed her hair to remind her of Palmon's flower.  
  
****  
  
It was late and Datamon was tired, but his relentless nature wouldn't let him stop working on sorting through the mounds of information that surrounded him. Vademon's scan of Miyako had been very thorough but by nature completely random; and most of the information stored within, from favorite food to random trivia about armadillos, was totally useless. It fell to him to go through most of it, and while he'd managed to pull floor plans for what seemed to be the home base of the enemy, and a few interesting tidbits on what had to be contained inside, but the rest of it was junk that was only fit for the shredding bin next to him.  
  
It was probably the late hour that had Datamon so off his guard that he missed a miniscule but potentially intriguing morsel of information. It wasn't directly related to the problem at hand so he took one look at it and dumped it into the nearby shredding box, joining a dozen other useless bits of computer information and phone numbers. The little piece of paper fell immediate victim to the shredding unit and was cleaved into tiny bits. It was never to reveal its terrible secret; the real name of the President of the Odaiba Group.  
  
Yukio Oikawa.  
  
**** 


End file.
